I was sitting around watching TV last night and I saw this commercial for Guiness beer where they show an athlete holding a stick with a rounded end preparing to hit a baseball-like ball towards a soccer-like net defended by other stick wielding players. Now I am a “sports guy”, I follow a diverse range of sports and was once a national level soccer player but I don’t remember coming across a sport such as this.
Does anyone know the commercial I am talking about?
Do you know anything about this sport and how it is played and scored?
The so-called announcer guy in the commercial had an British or Irish accent (sorry I am bad with accents) so maybe the UK Dopers might have some insight into this…
The guinness ad suggests that it should be hurling, the goals however, do not. Hurling goals are more like rugby goals (imagine a netless soccer goal with the verticals going up a lot more feet).
I think you’ll find that the Irish game with the goals with tall uprights is Gaelic Football, which is similar enough to Australian Rules football that we are able to run an international tour every other year.
Since we are all poor in Ireland we use multi purpose fields, one goal suits all. Haven’t had a change to watch a good game of hurling in years, but I can’t remember ever seeing one with nets.
The sport in the advert is indeed hurling. Apparently the “Free-In” advert was shot in Ballymore and featured players from County Dublin’s team among others.
I can’t believe it’s fallen to me to explain this, but the reason the same goal configuration is used for both Hurling and Gaelic Football is because the scoring system is the same – one point for over the bar and three for beneath. I suspect that nets are often not used because they’re not available, but a sliothar (the ball) would only be stopped by a finer mesh net, so if the available net was only suitable for football it might be a liability and you’d be better off without one.
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As a general rule, asking UK Dopers about Irish sports won’t be much use because they’re different countries.
There was a rumour that the guy in the ad is not in fact a hurley player, but an English actor who’d never held a hurley in his life till the day he turned up for the filming.
This created significant outrage among some hurley players I know.
Yes, william, the Guinness website says that he’s from the UK and that his name is Joseph Mawle. I always thought it was against GAA rules for someone born outside Ireland to play hurling or football on an Irish ground.
The ad agency who made the advert for guinness were looking for a certain type of character (can’t see why. Any hurler looks like a hurler to me. Perhaps they wanted one with teeth.) so they found an english actor who fitted their discription, because none of the hurlers that turned up for the audition were the correct “type”.
sorry I didn’t see this earlier
Hurling and Gaelic Football use the same pitch for the reason mentioned, they have the same scoring system.
the link to the GAA above will have everything you need to know. You should check with your local Irish bar and see if they show the games, or check on Cable.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by everton *
I always thought it was against GAA rules for someone born outside Ireland to play hurling or football on an Irish ground.
QUOTE]
no. It used to be that you couldn’t join a club if you were a member of the UK Security forces, but that was repealed a few years ago.
It used to be worse. If you were caught attending a soccer or rugby match you were banned from the GAA for life
Ah, the carefree xenophobic days of Old Ireland…
You just beat me to the punch, Twisty. This is what I had in the preview window…
I had a look at the Scór booklet on the GAA’s site. The rules there include this:
*Eligibility
Competitors from each club must be from within the parish or club area defined for the club activity or be a declared native of the club area and be registered members of the club.*
Anybody know what “declared native of the club area” would require? Could I represent my grandad’s home county? I couldn’t find any rule specifically prohibiting English-born people from participating but I always assumed that I’d be barred.
…
So I would be barred 'cos I’ve been to several (hundred) footy matches - and explains why they won’t let Croke Park be used for the Euro Nations Cup. A similar rule used to prevent the two codes of rugby mixing. But that leaves me with the question of which club/county I might have played for if I’d stayed off the soccer field.
That ruling was scrapped years ago, and probably was last enforced in the late 50’s.
The whole Parish thing is a bit rubbery, to say the least.
You can play for the team who’s parish you were
a) born in
b) Live in
c) Work in.
You cant play for more than one team in a season (kind of like the cup tied rule in soccer) County selection rules only go by B or C.
You dont necessarily have to play for a club team in the county you represent, but it is very hard to get around that rule. I can only think of maybe one or two instances that it was used.
