From The Irish Times
Saturday April 23rd 2011 It's Blues' to lose but Toulouse need a big one TREVOR BRENNAN’S TOULOUSE DIARY: TREVOR BRENNAN on how life in the south of France is going well and why Leinster will triumph in the battle of his former sides at the Aviva Stadium next Saturday. SITTING ON the terrace outside my new bar La Cantina in Sansubra (the old French, or Occitan word, for St Ciprian) drinking my Perrier and a bowl of ice cream after the lunchtime service, I begin to scribble a few notes on a notepad which has half a dozen lunch orders. It’s not easy, as there are many distractions. It’s 30 degrees, the hottest April they’ve had for many years in France, and then there’s the honking of horns, the siren of the occasional police car or an ambulance whizzing by, and all the lovely ladies who keep emerging from the hole in the ground about 10 feet in front of me. Yes, I did say the hole in the ground. The metro station is about 10 feet from the terrace. I give a few of the old ‘Hooooly Jay-sus’ to myself, take a sip of my Perrier and continue the scribbling. And I think about the friends of mine who were over last weekend to see Ireland Under-18 schools play France in the semi-finals of the FIRA Under-18 European Championship in Auch, which is about 80 kilometres from Toulouse. They stayed in Toulouse on the Friday and Saturday, and sitting over a few pints on the terrace on the Saturday afternoon we reminisced over some of our stories from our playing days and some of the other alikadoos who have since passed away in Bective, most recently Joe Nolan.
I was very upset when I heard the news. I was also in Cardiff when Joe died on the night of the Wales-Ireland game. It’s what he was to the club and to everyone. He had time for everybody, young, old. He’d go out of his way to do anything for you. In the five years I played with Bective he was always making the family welcome, he’d buy them a drink and made sure they got food. The odd time he’d throw me a few quid out of his own pocket. Just a lovely, gentle soul. His dream was to be the president of Bective and he was this season. One story that really stuck out to me was the boys telling how ‘Sweat’ spoke at Joe’s funeral. Joe was always into older women, dating back to his days playing for the college team and one day when the matron was rubbing his leg. Ever since then he had the bug. He worked for Rank Zerox and won a lot of trips because he was the best salesman. On one of these particular trips to Las Vegas, he was sitting at the bar with a lady who was about 30 years his senior. While she went off to powder her nose, another older lady came up to him as he was sipping his cocktail and said: “whatever she’s paying you, I’ll double it”. While we were telling a few stories, the lads asked me would I ever go back to Ireland. “With this weather and that hole in the ground, what would I go home for? And then there’s that recession.” Jerry Sexton, Ray McKenna and Peter Guy were the three guys who came over, long-standing mates from my Bective days and now good friends of my family. Young Jerry Sexton, brother of Leinster and Ireland out-half Jonny, was playing in Auch and had a fantastic game. I travelled on the Sunday with Paula after two big nights in the bar. I didn’t get home until 6.30am on Sunday morning as the local GAA team that I sponsor, the Toulouse Gaels, won an international tournament that had teams from Barcelona, Marseilles and Paris. They wear the Mayo colours of red and green. Leaving the pub the next morning to drive home (don’t worry I wasn’t drinking, just working – work, work and more work) one of the Toulouse Gaels lads who had come into De Danú at 8.30pm the night before turned to me and said: “Jaysus Trev, does it ever get dark in Toulouse?” The birds were singing and sun was shining, as it had been when he arrived. I just fell around laughing. Jerry Sexton is coming back over this weekend to see the young fella play in the final when the Irish Under-18s play England in Tarbes. The English team, like their French counterparts, have professional and semi-professional players from one to 22, whereas a lot of the Irish lads are still fighting for spots on the academies. Young Sexton is 6’ 5” but the French locks were 6’ 6” and 6’ 7”, and 18 or 19 stone, with the French props anything from 120 to 130 kilos. The Irish defence was a rock, and they upset the French by winning all their own lineout ball and picking off opposition ball. They rucked and mauled ferociously. There was a capacity crowd of over 7,000 at the semi-final. Other teams, like the Germans and the Dutch, were all screaming for Ireland because they were the underdogs. The 19-17 win made me feel very proud to be Irish. Irish rugby is in a good state if this is typical of what’s coming through. To read the rest of the column visit here http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/sport/2011/0423/1224295311696.html (In an interview with Gerry Thornley) © 2011 The Irish Times |
