Frank Schnittger

Andy Farrell has just named his 35 man squad for the November tests against New Zealand, Argentina, Fiji, and Australia plus five development players who will join them on a training camp in Portugal next week. Compared to the 37 players who toured South Africa, Henderson, Gibson Park, Hansen, and Keenan come back in, while Sheehan, Jager, and Jimmy O’Brien are excluded due to injury along with Blade, Doak, and Larmour. Most of the changes are due to players who …

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For a long time I have tried to understand politics in terms of marketing, policy and administrative competence. It’s about selling ideas, developing coherent policies, appealing to different demographics, and showing an ability to master the complex dynamics of managing change in huge bureaucracies. But sometimes you also have to admit you got it almost entirely wrong. By those measures Trump should be 20 percentage points behind in the US election campaign, and yet he has remained consistently 2.4 to …

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Hookers have become something of an endangered species in Ireland with all four of Leinster’s hookers, Dan Sheehan, Rónan Kelleher, John McKee, and Lee Barron currently injured and Ulster’s Rob Herring, Tom Stewart yet to male their debut this season. Diarmuid Barron has also been in the wars at Munster leaving only Niall Scannell and Dave Heffernan (Connacht) still standing amongst our front-line hooking fraternity. Leinster will probably have to start last year’s U.20 Captain and academy player, Gus McCarthy, …

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Leinster versus Munster Both Leinster and Munster have named strong teams for their hugely anticipated clash at a near sold out Croke Park, which looks like breaking the URC attendance record with a near 80,000 crowd. Munster have something of an injury crisis at prop, in particular, where they are forced to name an academy prop, Kevin Ryan, as their loosehead on the bench. However, they have the strength in depth to cover the other 22 positions with serious players …

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Scarlets 23 Connacht 24 Preview: Connacht go into this match with real momentum after an excellent performance in a narrow 33-35 defeat to Munster in Thomond Park and an amazing 36-30 comeback win against the Sharks, having been 7-27 down at half time. However, Connacht’s problem has always been their inconsistency and such heroics will count for little if they can’t back it up against an average side like the Scarlets. This is the sort of match which Connacht have …

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As historian Heather Cox Richardson has noted: In 2004 a senior advisor to President George W. Bush famously told journalist Ron Suskind that people like Suskind lived in “the reality-based community.” They believed people could find solutions to problems through careful study of discernible reality. But, the aide continued, Suskind’s worldview was obsolete. “That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” the aide said. “We are an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while …

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Edinburgh vs. Leinster Match Preview: Leo Cullen has picked three academy players to start their campaign in a tricky away fixture in Edinburgh. Charlie Tector was a good u.20 outhalf subsequently overshadowed by his successor, Sam Prendergast but is played slightly out of position at 12. Gus McCarthy and Conor O’Tighearnaigh were members of the Grand Slam winning u.20 team the season before last, but this is a big step up for them. I would be particularly worried about the …

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Following Trump’s disastrous debate performance, Taylor Swift released the following statement: Like many of you, I watched the debate tonight. If you haven’t already, now is a great time to do your research on the issues at hand and the stances these candidates take on the topics that matter to you the most. As a voter, I make sure to watch and read everything I can about their proposed policies and plans for this country. Recently I was made aware …

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I am not a historian but am full of admiration for those with that talent. One such is Daniel Murray, who has just written “When the Pseudo-Military Mind Meets Constitutional Respectability:” A history of the Irish General Election of August 1923. It reminded me of just how fraught the beginnings of the Irish Free State were. By agreeing to the Treaty under threat of immediate and terrible war, the pro-Treaty side had divided the nation with family members, friends, colleagues, …

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The Irish rugby season is starting to get underway with some pre-season friendlies and efforts to get new players integrated into the provincial squads. The start of the season is complicated by the international squad players not coming back until around round 3 of the URC after the exertions of their South African tour, and the emerging Ireland players going to South Africa also not being available to their clubs for a few weeks in October. The international squad will …

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I wrote an opinion piece about the perils and difficulties of blog moderation and praising the ability of the Slugger moderation team to keep the show reasonably civil and on the road for such a long time. A previous forum I am associated with has almost died for lack of good moderation, among many other reasons. Predictably my Slugger piece attracted a storm of criticism of individual moderating decisions but also complaints about a systematic bias against unionists. There were …

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This is the fifth of a series of posts on the US elections following on from Hitler with Nukes? (July 21st.), A Dead Bear Bounce for Kennedy? (Aug. 5th.), The Tipping Point: Kamala Harris versus Donald Trump (Aug. 12th.), and Kamala Harris Surge? (Aug. 21st.) Most of the titles had question marks as the precise shape of the campaigns had still to emerge, especially after the withdrawal of President Biden from the race. But the campaigns have now settled into …

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I love to blog because I love to write, but also to engage with those who do me the honour of reading and engaging what I have written. I am grateful when they point out errors in my writing because that is how I learn. In particular, I am grateful to the denizens of Slugger O’Toole who have taught me so much of what little I know of Northern Ireland. I am also, for my sins, a veteran of political …

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At the heart of almost every Andy Pollak political OP is the contention that a 50%+1 border poll for re-unification will result in “a very rude awakening,” for the south, i.e., widespread loyalist violence which will result in many, perhaps the majority, coming to regret they ever favoured re-unification. He insists there must be a reconciliation between unionists and nationalists before a border poll is ever considered. This is, at least, an advance on his previous position that a much …

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Just a few weeks ago Trump was leading Biden in almost all the key battleground states. He had beaten Biden in the Presidential debate, had had a triumphant coronation at the Republican National Convention, and was approaching sainthood as the bullet missed his head by mere inches. His devoted followers interpreted that as a sign from God that he was truly the blessed one. Even his anointment of JP Vance as his Vice Presidential nominee could be dismissed as “not …

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People make the mistake of seeing the UUP as a political party dedicated to achieving power for the betterment of NI. That was never the case. It was dedicated to achieving power for the betterment of big house unionists and their professional and middle class protestant sons and daughters. When they ceased to have the power to deliver this, they lost their raison d’être. So now they are more like a club where old geezers go on about the good …

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2020 Electoral Map This is the electoral map with which Joe Biden beat Donald Trump in 2020 by a margin of 306 votes to 232 in the 2020 electoral college. (See footnote for changes in the electoral college for 2024)* Despite winning the popular vote by 81,284,666 (51.3%) to 74,224,319 (46.9%), a margin of over 7 million votes (4.4%), Biden only won the electoral college thanks to narrow wins in Georgia (0.24%). Arizona (0.31%) and Wisconsin (0.63%) with a combined …

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  A “dead cat bounce” is defined as a temporary, short-lived recovery of asset prices from a prolonged decline or a bear market that is followed by the continuation of the downward trend. Frequently, downtrends are interrupted by brief periods of recovery—or small rallies—during which prices temporarily rise. The phrase came to mind when Robert Kennedy Jnr, the independent US Presidential candidate admitted dumping a dead baby bear in New York’s Central Park and sparking a major security incident ten …

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I have mixed feelings about the Olympics. On the one hand I have enjoyed playing in and watching competitive sport all my life. On the other, nothing has done more to “politicize” sport than the Olympics. From boycotts of the Moscow and Los Angeles Olympics to the slaughter of participants in Munich. From the state sponsored drug taking in Russia and China to the endemic “cheating” amongst the judges in boxing – the latest example being the outrageous decision against …

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I had the pleasure of attending the first two days of the MacGill Summer school for the first time this year and listened to some excellent discussions and talks. Friday was headlined by An Taoiseach, Simon Harris who gave a speech and interview proposing to set up a new department of Infrastructural Development to improve the delivery of major infrastructural projects. See report by Mark Hennesy here. He also announced that the Irish Government would not be acceding to the …

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