Our Friends From The North, Pt.3 – Ryan Caldwell And The Lessons He Could Teach You

Ryan Caldwell breaks away from Mamuka Gorgodze in Bath’s 2011-12 Heineken Cup clash against Montpellier.

Some time ago we published a couple of articles about Ulster-born players Chris Henry and Roger Wilson. Apparently it was going to be a four-part series [or so we claimed], except we never bothered to post anything after the first two chapters. That’d be the sands of time slipping through the gnarled fingers of Old Man Editorial Control. Wait a minute – that makes no sense. In the words of Dexys, plus ça changeContinue reading

The Provincial Draft

With the second pick of the first round, Connacht select Ian Nagle, Munster Academy

Afficionados of American Football will be familiar with the NFL Draft. Each year in April, the best players from college are distributed amongst the 32 NFL teams in a manner designed to maximize competitiveness in the league: thus the team with the worst record gets the first choice in the first draft, and the team who won the last Super Bowl gets the thirty-second choice. It runs over seven rounds, so 224 players are selected. The last player selected is cruelly titled ‘Mr Irrelevant’, but funnily enough, that’s totally irrelevant to this article.  Continue reading