Munster's shootout defeat - the dark arts in rugby, yay or nay?
Munster's shootout defeat to the Sharks in Durban has dominated the headlines, no least for the home side's attempts to throw Munster's kickers off their game. This inevitably opened up a wider chat on kick tricks and the dark arts in rugby more generally.
Plus, do Leinster look like a side on the cusp of a title after their unconvincing Scarlets win? What do we need to see from them over the next fortnight to end their silverware drought?
Produced by John Casey.
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Irish Examiner
3 minutes ago
- Irish Examiner
Boran and Kildare dreaming of staying afloat in Leinster
Monday evening in Carlow and Rian Boran finds himself on the same pitch facing the combined talents of TJ Reid, Chris Crummey and Lee Chin. It's all fun as the Kildare captain is taking part in the Hurling for Cancer Research charity game but in 2026 he'll lock horns with Leinster's best players for real. Tipperary may go down as the breakthrough hurling team of 2025, given their MacCarthy Cup triumph, but Boran and Kildare can't be far behind given their remarkable progress. It's only 18 months or so since they were navigating the Christy Ring Cup competition but now, after winning that and the Joe McDonagh Cup, they are preparing for life in hurling's fast lane in 2026. They will replace Antrim in the Leinster championship and just one win, as Offaly proved this season, might even be enough to keep them up. Can they do it? "Everyone has hopes and dreams - it would definitely be a dream of mine to stay up in the Leinster championship," said Boran. "But there's a lot of work to be done. I'm already looking forward to getting back in with the lads again. We'll try to drive on with the club first but we'll look forward to the new year with Kildare, absolutely." Kildare were defeated by Down in March's Division 2 league final but both sides were promoted to 1B for 2026. That will be another significant challenge for the Lilywhites, pitching them in alongside Crummey's Dubs and 2024 All-Ireland winners Clare next spring. "It's a huge challenge," acknowledged Boran of the overall test awaiting Kildare next year. "We'll try our best not to underestimate it. We know there's a huge amount of work to do to try to reach that level because it's a really different standard but we're up for trying to reach that level and we'll hopefully give a bit of entertainment to our fans too." And yet Kildare's season was in danger of bottoming out at the beginning of the McDonagh Cup. Fresh off that league final defeat, they lost their Round 1 game against Kerry in Newbridge. At that stage, the county had played nine Joe McDonagh Cup games ever and lost the lot. Remarkably, Kerry ended up getting relegated to the Ring Cup while Kildare redoubled their efforts and reeled off five wins to take the McDonagh Cup, beating favourites Laois by 10 points in the Croke Park final. "It was a lot of the lads' first time up in the Joe McDonagh Cup, it's a young team compared to previous years, so that first game definitely had a huge impact," said full-back Boran. "That was a tough one, we took it pretty hard but in fairness to the lads they showed the right attitude. Kerry are a good team as well. But we took that beating to heart and came back stronger. We had to up the physicality for the next game against Westmeath."
Irish Times
an hour ago
- Irish Times
Changing the conversation on Ireland's Natura 2000 sites
The mainstay of biodiversity protection in the EU rests on two directives: the first, for birds (the Birds Directive ), adopted in 1979; and the other, for habitats and species that are not birds (the Habitats Directive ), approved in 1992. Among the requirements, member states are obliged to designate areas for the protection of those species or habitats that were considered by ecologists to be of highest ecological value, or which were particularly rare or threatened: Special Protection Areas (SPAs) for birds, Special Areas of Conservation (Sacs) for the rest. In Ireland, these include native forests, bogs, sand dunes, otters, bats and kingfishers. Taken together, the network of SPAs and Sacs are referred to as Natura 2000 and are, according to the European Environment Agency 'the largest co-ordinated network of protected areas in the world'. The extent of Natura 2000 across Europe continues to grow, but the latest data indicate that it covers 18.6 per cent of land and 9 per cent of seas. In Ireland, coverage is below the national average, encompassing 13.2 per cent of land and 7.7 per cent of the Celtic Seas marine region (seas including Ireland but stretching from Northern Spain to Scotland). These figures fall short of the EU-wide commitment to protect 30 per cent of land and sea by 2030, a target set at Cop15 in Montreal, Canada, in 2023, which was like a Paris Agreement for biodiversity. The effectiveness of Natura 2000 has been called into question. On the one hand, it has prompted some of Europe's greatest conservation success stories, from the recovery of the Iberian Lynx from near extinction to the nature-friendly farming practices developed in the Burren in Co Clare. On the other hand, it has failed to stem the continued loss of biodiversity, something that was implicitly recognised in 2023 with the proposal for a Nature Restoration Law . Natura 2000 requires member states to ensure habitats and species are in 'favourable status' but lacks timelines, while the lists of species and habitats deemed worthy of protection in the early 1990s lack flexibility (unlike the endangered species Act in the United States). This has left many threatened species, especially in the marine environment (eg endangered shark species) outside the network. Creating protected areas was never meant to the be-all and end-all of nature conservation, but they have a certain allure in the public imagination, which has come to expect lines on maps and (if you're lucky) a sign announcing a site's designated status mean measures are taken which provide the refuge that is so badly needed for nature. Indeed, they are critical in providing space for nature in a crowded world but people are right to be shocked when the protection that is advertised is not delivered on the ground. While the health of individual Natura 2000 sites is not monitored and reported on, the status of 85 per cent of these 'protected' habitats and 30 per cent of species (not including birds) in Ireland was found to be unfavourable/bad here at our last reporting to the European Commission (EC) in 2019 (an update report is due in 2026 but few are expecting results to be dramatically different). In 2023, following a case taken by the EC, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) found Ireland had failed to implement the Habitats Directive and, in particular, had failed to identify measures to achieve favourable status within the 441 Irish Sacs. Meanwhile, 'designation' is a dirty word among farming organisations and is a byword, particularly in the west of Ireland, for dispossession and devaluation of land. In essence, farmers were informed their land was designated, frequently only in writing, accompanied with technocratic language and dreaded lists of 'activities requiring consent'. There was a certain tragic irony that farmers have viewed the sweep of designations as 'sterilising' their land in terms of development and income potential, when the land was also biologically being sterilised with little or no incentive for changes to farming practices. The eruption of negativity around the ending of turf-cutting on Sacs designated for raised bogs during the early years of the 2010s, when politicians blamed bureaucrats in Brussels and Garda helicopters flew over the heads of protesting locals, made nature a toxic political issue that was followed by the defunding of the National Parks & Wildlife Service (NPWS). Rather than protecting our most important biodiversity sites, Natura 2000 has, in many cases, hastened their decline (incidentally, turf-cutting on Sacs continues, illegally, to this day and is subject to a separate case in the ECJ). The ruling from the ECJ came at a time when the rehabilitation of the NPWS was also a political priority. Today, it is an independent State agency with more staff and money to spend on actual conservation initiatives. Problems remain, as you might expect, but today a more confident NPWS is ready to be a champion for nature – and Natura 2000 is top of its priorities. NPWS director of nature conservation Ciara Carberry admits the saga has been long and 'not always glorious'. While the location of Natura 2000 sites is spread across the country, within urban as well as rural areas, most of the very large sites are in the west of Ireland, where Carberry says, many of those places coincided 'with the places where it was hardest to make a living. So you had this coming together of having an obligation on Ireland to protect and designate these sites in places where people may already have been struggling to make a good livelihood ... and that can create a tension ... I think in places, justifiably so, there can be this perception that it was imposed on them, from outside, from up in Dublin, that we just drew a line on the map.' She says the past four years, with the rebooting of the NPWS, they have worked 'to address that perception in terms of working much better with communities' as well as being 'more open and transparent'. Much of the effort since the ECJ ruling has been around more accurately mapping Sac boundaries, completing the statutory protection process and developing 'conservation objectives' for each site. These objectives make it clear to everyone what it means for the species or habitat to be in 'favourable' status, and they have important ramifications for plans and projects that may have an impact upon them. This has been a 'gigantic piece of work', says Carberry but the process for all Natura 2000 sites is nearing completion. The next step, and also a part of the ECJ ruling, is establishing measures on each site in order to meet the objectives. These can be protective measures (stopping bad things from happening) as well as proactive interventions, and usually a combination of both is needed. In addressing this challenge, the NPWS has developed an approach in close consultation with the commission, the outcome of which is a table of measures which are under way at each site and which, it is predicted, will allow for further analysis of what additional actions may be needed. The NPWS leads this process but given that Natura 2000 sites include vast areas of mountain bogs, entire river systems where water quality is being impacted by all kinds of activity in the catchment, or coastal areas with different fishing activities, the NPWS is going to need the co-operation of a range of government departments (notably the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine) if we are to see these measures ultimately translate into positive trends for species and habitats. Carberry is not shy in emphasising the challenge but is upbeat with regard to their engagement so far with other departments and State bodies. She maintains this process will be complete for all Sacs in two years, but works are already under way through dedicated funding specifically for Natura 2000 sites, which includes invasive species removal and deer management on some of their properties. There is also a 'Natura communities and engagement' scheme for community groups and which is delivering €600,000 in 2025. The language around Natura 2000 is technocratic and arcane and can create a gulf between distant government targets on one hand and protecting wildlife in places people know and love on the other. Carbery concedes 'there is a challenge as to how we get these stories out there', but points to a positive experience at the 2024 ploughing championships where initial trepidation concerning farmer reaction gave way to warm engagement. The agency is beginning to put a human face on the bureaucracy. 'It's such a simple thing, but so important, that people have a human face, that's local to them, that they can go and talk to. 'I do appreciate that there are people and communities who feel that having a Natura designation is stopping them from doing things they'd like to be doing. I'd like to see us get to a place where being in a Sac is a benefit to people and not a difficulty for them. If you live in a very special place, that should be a good thing and not a bad thing.'
RTÉ News
an hour ago
- RTÉ News
Stacey Flood: We can't be 'afraid of what people think of us'
It's getting real now. The preparation, that started back in early June, is, for the most part, over. Two warm-up games, containing good, bad and ugly, are out of the way and in four days' time, Ireland will be back on the World Cup stage. It's been quite the journey. The 2017 home World Cup that promised so much, delivered little; nothing on the pitch and nothing in terms of a positive lasting legacy. Instead, the final play-off loss to Wales set Ireland on a qualifying path from which they could not find their way off; it culminated in a 2021 defeat to Scotland in Parma, that in turn preceded the players' letter of discontent with the IRFU, two captains stepping away in their prime and a wooden spoon. It seemed new rock bottoms were being found at every turn. But then, an upturn. Scott Bemand took over in 2023 and a WXV3 title arrived soon after. World Cup qualification and consecutive third-place finishes in the Six Nations were sealed, while Ireland recorded statement wins over Australia and New Zealand. Expectations were raised, and then somewhat tempered by the injury absences of Erin King, Dorothy Wall, Christy Haney, and Aoife Wafer, who is set to miss the first two games at least. The WXV successes took place away from the spotlight, in Dubai and Canada, while World Cup qualification was secured over a year ago. But soon the attention of the country will be on the team when they take on Japan at Franklin's Gardens on Sunday at noon (live on RTÉ). "Having eyes on women's rugby and our team is never going to be a bad thing because we want the Irish people behind us," full-back Stacey Flood tells RTÉ Sport from the team's hotel, a stone's throw from the Silverstone racing circuit, in the UK Midlands. "We want the support. "If that's us going out and putting in a good performance or not getting the performance we want, we still want support from back home. "The green wave isn't about whether you are doing poorly or good, there are going to be ebbs and flows. "Not everything is going to be the best every time. It's about getting eyes on women's rugby 'cos this is going to be such a major pedestal for women's rugby. "I think this whole tournament is going to change the game. "We want to sell out stadiums, we want great crowds, and we are not going to get that if we sit back and are afraid to put out the performance we want or afraid of what people will think of us. "The fact that it's on the same time zone, that we are a 45-minute flight away, if people get behind us, that's exactly what we are looking for." Ireland had to stew on a late disappointing defeat to Scotland at the tail end of the Six Nations, while there was a sense of getting dirty diesel out of the system in the warm-up win over Scotland and loss to Canada. "You don't want to go out the blocks too early in warm-up games, and be performing 10 out of 10," says the Dubliner. "Hopefully that's what those games are for, to learn what you need to do right and wrong, learn what you can do better. "I feel like we got what we wanted out of them, found areas we need to improve on and we have been improving on them. "We started slow in those games and that's going to be a big focus this weekend. "We didn't get into the Irish way enough, like. We took 20 minutes to get into the games and that put us on the back foot. "We were waiting for something to happen but we have to go out and make things happen." Ireland have beaten Japan in six of their seven meetings, with the defeat coming in a tour match in 2022. Ireland trained just outside Northampton, with Aoife Wafer not among the group. Scott Bemand's side open their #RWC2025 campaign against Japan on Sunday #RTERugby #RTESport — RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) August 20, 2025 "They are so diligent and they might not be the biggest but they areir so skillful," said Flood, who represented Ireland at the Paris Olympics in Sevens last year, of the first Pool C opponents. "Their kicking and passing is on a tee. They are really good jackal threats. "We know what they are good at but it's about bringing it back to our squad and what we can do in a green jersey, and not playing up too much to the opposition. "When you start changing for other people you go away from your own game. We're happy with our game and we know we can get good bang for what we are good at." While the focus is fully on Lesley McKenzie's side, there's been plenty of time for the squad to relax. There's been golf, a visit to Oxford, a visit to a guide dog centre, hurling puckabouts, Eve Higgins' TikTok lip-syncing, a card game that got out of hand, Beth Buttimer's 20th birthday party, Niamh O'Dowd clocking up the biggest fines, and watching the sun set in the beautiful surroundings of the Whittlebury Park Hotel. The mood is good, and when Flood is asked about the potential of the team, she lights up even more. "Like Dannah [O'Brien], Dalto [Aoife Dalton], a lot of the girls are 20, 21, 22. I think there is no ceiling at the minute because their rugby-playing age is so old for how young they are and they are growing within the game," says the 29-year-old. "Aoife Dalton is one of our best defenders, our best attackers and she still has so much time to grow in a high-performance environment. "Having that age profile, this team is only going to build. "A little bit of experience at the top and I feel like if we get the most out of each other the team will keep growing."
