Friday, March 16, 2007

Irish Rugby Jersey

I had today off work so I spent the day in town walking around seeing what was going on in the run up to St Patrick's Day, which was nothing, in case your wondering. Still, I had another reason to walk around the city, I was searching for an Irish rugby jersey. Every sports shop in town was sold out. I tried everyplace from the Leinster Rugby store in Donnybrook and Elverys on St Stephens Green to several Champion Sports and Lifestyle stores. No luck.

Each store told me they were sold out and there were none in any stores in Dublin. Finally after hours of walking around I headed up to Dundrum, 20 minutes walk from my apartment to get some stuff in Tescos and called into Champion Sports where, shock, they had two left. A medium and an extra large. I bought the medium one straight away and went home happy. Now I'm ready for St Patricks Day, the final day of the 6 Nations and the World Cup.

What I found interesting about this search was that every store had racks and racks of Irish soccer jerseys. Every colour, size, style and shape you can think of. Tons of them. Usually beside the door where customers are most likely to see them but no one was bothering. Several other people were rooting around in the rugby sections, obviously on a similar hunt as my own. That just shows how fickle the public are. Once, not so long ago the team were regular competitors in major competitions, it seemed like everyone owned an Irish soccer jersey and stores were often sold out of proper green home jerseys. These days the Irish soccer team under Steve Staunton are in free fall in the World rankings and struggle to beat amateur pub teams while the rugby team are talked about as World Cup contenders. I have to admit I haven't owned an Irish rugby jersey before but I do own two Munster ones but I wanted a proper green jersey for St Patrick's Day. It also shows how choosing a bad manager can impact a sporting organizations income as well as their results.

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