Of course you can. People do it all the time. Witness any of the amalgamated rugby touring sides, or the state of origin games, or the West Indies, or the Ryder cup and presidents cup, or the GB team for the Olympics.
There is no real rhyme or reason to it but if you can construct a sporting team that commands allegiance…then it works. All sporting teams are created by arbitrary divisions and the Irish Rugby team are no different.
Anyway, it works and it is an overall force for good in sport (and politics too though I hate the two being conflated)
Yup, it’s a good tune. Shame we can’t use Nimrod either, mainly because
A) there are no words to it
B) it has too much of an association with Remembrance Sunday
Actually, It might be nice to have something with no words as we wouldn’t have to suffer warbling tits verbally mangling it every single time.
Oooh yes, Jerusalem, how could I forget? They use it for the England cricket team (which also messes with national boundaries, given that anyone from the UK can play for England). They also use it at the Commonwealth Games. Come on rugby, catch up!
The good thing about Jerusalem is that there are answers to each question posed that the opposing supporters could insert:
And did those feet in ancient times walk upon England’s mountains green?
(No.)
And was the holy lamb of God on England’s pleasant pastures seen?
(No, it wasn’t.)
And did the countenance divine shine forth upon these clouded hills?
(No, it didn’t.)
And was Jerusalem builded here, among these dark satanic mills?
(Nope.)
Yes indeed, unfortunately such cross-border chuminess doesn’t apply to Wales , N. Ireland and Scotland who steadfastly refuse to join in with England to form a United Kingdom football [ soccer ] team to compete in next years London Olympics.
I’m Scottish and such childish, puerile anti-social behaviour towards England by the other countries of the UK is much more prevalent than it used to be, but no less pathetic.
I think it may be more about sports politics, in the case of the national football teams. Scotland/Wales/N.Ireland’s associations are firecely protective of their independent status, amid persistent grumbling from other FIFA associations about the UK getting four national teams. The four British FAs each get a vote in the IFAB rule-making committee, while the rest of FIFA gets just four votes.
The three other UK associations therefore resist any kind of move towards a unified British team, such as participating in a single GB team at the Olympics.
Exactly. He should not have thrown the word “pathetic” in there, and gone close to suggesting that it’s “pathetic” of other nations to want to keep their independance in sporting matters. Some people here already seem to have a crazy thought process regarding this.
There’s also a question that needs to be asked as to why matches involving the Northern provincial teams (England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland) are called “internationals”.
In essence, the reason that it’s done that way in sports like rugby, soccer and the Commonwealth Games is because that’s the way that it’s always been done - unlike the Olympic Games, which actually put its foot down and required a national team to be formed.
Yeah, it’s a messy one. They are nations but English, Scottish and Welsh don’t exist as nationalities. Thus England’s players (for example) are not “English”, they are “from England”.
Teams formed out of a weird political entities are part of what makes rugby appealing. Rather than the endless club / international circuit that soccer has become in recent years rugby has enough of its amateur ethos still in place to occasionally have top class players play for cobbled together teams.
As well as the British and Irish Lions, the Barbarians are an example of a scratch team which players still love to play for.
Also having national teams playing club and provinical sides can produce some great occasions. The Munster v New Zealand match a few years ago in Limerick is considered one of the greatest matches seen in these parts.
Yeah rugby could follow a strict sovereign nation v sovereign nation rule but christ it would get boring pretty quickly.
And yes I also can understand the reason for Ireland’s Call but yes it is a terrible song. Especially the prerecorded version used for away matches which has a weird guitar riff at the start.
In essence it’s because we invented those sports (or competitions in the case of the Commonwealth Games). The first internationals were played between those nations, so we get to set the rules
I’m guessing BigNik isn’t British as he doesn’t seem to get it.
Not for any non-archaic use of the term. Show me a separate, independent government, foreign policy and military, for instance and you might stand a shot at justifying it.
Hey, if you want to play at pretending that Wales is a real country, despite the fact that it isn’t as independent as, say, a state of the US or Australia or a province of Canada, don’t let reality get in the way of it. Just don’t expect me to pander to your delusions.
The constituent parts of the UK are not sovereign nations, no, but it’s quite normal and uncontroversial in Britain and many other places to refer to and think of them as separate countries. There’s another major rugby tournament called the Six Nations (four from Britain and Ireland, plus Italy and France). No one thinks it odd to call the tournament that. So you’re coming up against a usage accepted by maybe 100 million people. That’s not obscure or archaic.
