Sunday, March 21, 2010

Can I come in for a gloat?

Not that I would want to be remotely triumphalist about the afternoon's events in Dublin, but nevertheless this might be an opportune moment to recall a comment left here by a certain 'liberal' Northern Ireland blogger less than two weeks ago -

"Flower of Scotland is certainly a neat emblem for your rugby team. A long ago victory which was followed by a series of humiliating defeats."

At the time it did occur to me to respond by saying "if by any chance Scotland spoil the party a week on Saturday, I may return to this subject at some length", but as the chances of that happening seemed slim, I reckoned discretion was the better part of valour. I should have had more faith...

(PS. Medieval history isn't my strongest suit, but does anyone have the faintest idea what Chekov's 'string of humiliating defeats' in the aftermath of 1314 are supposed to be? As it secured independence for no fewer than four full centuries, Bannockburn looks like a fairly decisive sort of battle to me.)

3 comments:

  1. Flodden? Would be a bit tasteless if he's referring to Culloden! 1746, anyway, so scarcely the aftermath of Bannockburn.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Scotland finally won something,I can understand why you want to gloat,it usually happens once a decade,Enjoy!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anon - Actually, there's been an interesting kind of symmetry in Scotland v Ireland matches over the last twenty years. Scotland won in Dublin in 1990, and that heralded a decade in which they never lost once to Ireland (the 1994 game was a draw, all the others were Scotland wins). Ireland broke that run with a huge victory in Dublin in 2000, and that in turn heralded a decade in which Ireland only lost to Scotland twice (and just once in the Six Nations).

    So is Scotland winning the first encounter of this new decade a portent of things to come? Probably not, but you never know!

    ReplyDelete