Ireland's wait for a win over New Zealand somehow goes on. It's been 28 games, and apart from a solitary draw in 1973, its been losses all the way. We have been forced to concede that the New Zealanders probably have a point that they're better than us at rugby. However, everyone has their strengths. Here is a badly needed list of things that Ireland are better at than New Zealand.
1. Music
Kiri Te Kanawa is still their standard bearer. All they've had in the last 20 years has been OMC, Crowded House and Bic Runga. Hayley Westenra is a lovely singer but ultimately a poor man's Charlotte Church
2. Football
We still are, despite them making the 2010 World Cup. All they had to beat was Bahrain to reach the tournament whereas we're screwed over as a small nation in Europe, a voting bloc that Sepp Blatter has found he doesn't need. Still we've got to more tournaments than them.
3. Literature
Joyce, Beckett, Yeats, Wilde, Banville, Toibin, and Marion Keyes. We blow them out of the water when it comes to literature.
4. TV
"New Zealand TV is fucking terrible" - PJ Browne who spent a year watching it
5. Radio
"New Zealand Radio is fucking terrible - PJ Browne who spent a year listening to it
6. Hurling
The Kiwis show no sign closing the gap in hurling.
7. Eurovision
"We won it seven times, we won it seven times, Oh in Oslo, we won it seven times."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rj345GYAG1k
8. Soaps
Irish people, by and large, do not believe our soap operas show our nation at its finest. But if one thing can make Fair City look like a towering achievement, its New Zealand's truly awful Shortland Street. Just a poor rip-off of Holby City.
9. Gaelic Football
Since 1884, we have left the Kiwis standing when it comes to Gaelic football
10. Not needing lads from the Pacific Islands
There are very few Samoans and Tongans that we've relied upon in over 100 years of rugby. Though we have, it must be said, acquired some help from, er, New Zealanders.
11. Not having to pledge allegiance to the Queen
We have one over on the Kiwis on this. They still insist on going through this. We haven't had to do this since the 1930s.
12. Not making films like The Piano
No Irish director has made a film like The Piano. The same cannot be said for New Zealand.
13. Compromised rules
We have never been outside the top 2 in the compromised rules in 30 years. New Zealand don't register here.
14. Golf
We've had a host of major winners in recent years. Bob Charles was a good golfer and the first left-hander to win a major. But Michael Campbell was a horrid choker and then when he finally did win a major he disappeared.
15. Hating the Sunday Times journalist Stephen Jones
This one is seriously touch and go. If an injury ravaged Leeds Tykes were to go out and take on a full strength Canterbury Crusaders, Jones would tip the Tykes for victory and were that prediction not to come true, he would claim that Leeds had dominated the game and it was a travesty they lost. However, its time to go out on a limb. As a result of our proximity to the man, and observing the arguments on his twitterfeed, we hate him more. I understand this will annoy New Zealanders more than any other reasons on this list.
Here's some other things we're significantly better at than New Zealand
Sean nos singing, stand-up comedy, tea drinking, talking shite about the weather, writing mournful, 'poor mouth style' autobiographies of one's childhood in which the rain itself is a central character, singing, singing when we're winning, singing when we're losing, staying silent when someone kicks for goal (usually), extricating ourselves from IMF bailouts, not allowing Jane Campion and Harvey Keitel to make a series of boring films, doubling on the ball JBM style, high fielding, An Modh Coinniollach, hitting fair shoulders, remembering Father Ted quotes, giving out to referees, attacking referees, bundling referees into the back of boots and letting them out some way down the road, arguing about history, pulling pints of Guinness, taking photos of pints of Guinness alongside slices of brown bread and hanging them up pub walls, having a wave of themed pubs all across the globe attempting to imitate us, creating financially ruinous property bubbles, having players who score goals in the Premiership, making currachs, writing poetry, exercising the ire of the late Telegraph rugby journalist John Reason.
