A small minority deemed it inexcusable. Whenever any team loses important matches or goes through a sustained period of playing terrible football, the natural inclination is to blame the manager, the trainer or the selectors. This is currently the case with Irish rugby. Many people don't like to, or don't want to admit that they're not good enough to win - but the players that compete on a given day either, aren't good enough or haven't applied themselves properly. In all the games we lost as a club last year I can't think of one where responsibility for defeat rested solely with management.
People say that achievement is a journey without ending.
The hardest part of planning for that journey is how to arrive at one destination and look forward to the next. Whatever we may have achieved by going on our own in the championship last year, we intend building on whatever mistakes we may have made, they're our mistakes and we intend learning from them. Elsewhere on the playing front, the Sigerson cup is in full swing at the moment. These days, playing with the training college M.I.C.E., our ambitions aren't quite as lofty but the enjoyment and enthusiasm generated by participation in this great competition hasn't diminished. It was a competition that was traditionally the reserve of the more recognised national universities.