Indo Sport
Bits & Bobs | Dublin's falling crowds, Ruaidhri vs Nienaber, Andy Farrell's new deal
05 Jun 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What are the reasons behind Dublin's falling crowds?
This is an Irish Independent Podcast. Bits and Bobs, let's go. There's a complete line-up reshuffle here. Ronan is freshening things up. He's fielded a brand new three in studio, never before together. It's up to us now, lads, to make sure that this does not feel like an FA Cup-style rotation.
We have a chance to make people think, you know what, get that team back together again for the big games. Maybe even for a Tuesday. Bits and Bobs, and I think we can do it. That's why I'm happy that Rory O'Connor is here, a seasoned pro, despite all his experience, all his success, still hungry, still mad for work. Welcome to the team, Rory. Thanks, Conor. Yeah, something like that.
But you can imagine my disappointment when I tried to start a pep talk this morning, get the team going, fill you all with a bit of enthusiasm, and then a voice groans over my shoulder saying, I'm very cranky today. And John Green appears. I'm sorry, I have no ideas for you, Conor. Welcome, John.
You're playing the role of the wizened old pro today.
so what's coming up this weekend on I was going to say on bits and bobs on every channel you can imagine GA provincial final weekend the hurling is going to be tasty on Saturday 6 o'clock Dublin v Galway in the Leinster final in Croke Park that's on RTE Joe McDonagh cup final is before that 3.45 also on RTE between Cardo and Leash The Camogie All-Ireland is in full swing.
The Towson Cup is two TV games for that. RGA Plus, we're not getting into that today. Don't worry. Fermanagh against New York at 3 o'clock and then clashing with the Leinster Hurdle final. A massive game. Down away to Longford, John Green's Longford. Obviously Down's dreams taking a bit of a nosedive this season. TG Kershaw in three games from the Ladies Football Championship on Sunday as well.
Mayo in Dublin standing out one o'clock. And at two on Sunday on RTE in Parky Creeve, Cork versus Limerick. Munster hurling final and then it's GRC semi-finals time at 2.30. What could have been Connacht and Munster. It's Glasgow Warriors and Bulls at 2.30 like I said and at 5.30 Leinster v Stormers Premier Sports.
Premier Sports actually showing rugby from 10 o'clock to 10 o'clock on Saturday if anybody's interested. Now it's not a live rugby but they're obviously feeding the rugby fan there. What else is happening? NBA Finals. New York Knicks. San Antonio Spurs tonight. 1.30am. Game 2. Knicks are 1 up. French Open. Women's Final on Saturday. Men's Final on Sunday. Monaco Grand Prix on Sunday.
Women's Euro Italia finishes this weekend. And the football tonight. Also Parc Equiv. 7.30am. Ireland v. Netherlands on RTE2. World Cup Qualifier. And the big one. Canada vs. Republic of Ireland. 12.30am. Will you stay up for it, John Green? I'll be up.
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Chapter 2: How did Ruaidhri O'Connor respond to Jacques Nienaber's comments?
I should be getting ready for Saturday for work. But I'll probably last the first half, I'd say.
First place to start is news broke this morning that Andy Farrell has signed a new contract as head coach of Ireland that takes him up to 2031. Was this expected, Rory? No.
It was expected that some sort of deal would be done. I had a story linking him to Saracens during the Six Nations, which was going round and I'd heard that they had tabled him a fairly significant offer.
But soon after that, the RFU were kind of getting the word out that they were confident that despite, you know, he was linked to the England job, I'm sure he had lots of offers on the table because he is...
very desirable head coach and he was coming up for his contract and there's a bit of a musical chairs about to happen in 27 but the word kind of came out pretty swiftly after that that they were confident that he would sign on initially I think most people expected it to be 2029 so that would bring him to the Lions halfway through a cycle and then he would decide then whether he'd continue until 2031 but the fact that he signed on for another four years which will take a stint in Ireland
including his time as defence coach, to 15 years involved in one team, 12 as head coach, is a fairly remarkable vote of confidence both from him in what he thinks is happening here and also from the RFU in him. And there, look, if you talk to Kevin Potts or David Humphries, they're... Enthrall is the wrong word, but they're fully convinced that they have the best coach in the world.
I'm sure Razzy Rasmussen and our friends in South Africa would disagree. He signed on until 2031 as well, so they've gone for a continuity three World Cups as well. It's never been done before. I don't think any Irish coach has ever been in charge for that long.
I remember Joe Schmitz coming into 2019 worried about how he worried that the players he'd had at Leinster into Ireland had grown tired of his voice and
and that kind of came to be the case in the end in 2019 it was like one year too much for Joe Farrell is a different setup he's a different voice there were signs maybe that that voice wasn't landing in the last year or two but the way the Six Nations ended and the positivity and the way they played and how they rediscovered their mojo and
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Chapter 3: What does Andy Farrell's new deal mean for Irish rugby?
This will be a fit and farewell for, I suppose, one of the country's greatest ever sports people. It's an amateur. The barrier she's broken down. Olympics, headline fights, TV audiences, mass interest. and in the two weight divisions that she's conquered.
It's a shame, I think, that she'll be 40 going into this fight, but it's almost making a little bit more worthy, just 10 years as a professional, the years before that, London in 2012. It is a nice goodbye, but I think the question will be, will it be filled?
The devil's in the detail, which we may get some of over the next coming days, but the devil is in the detail, as in... Who's paying for it? How many tickets do they need to sell? I mean, I've heard people during the week saying they may need to sell 60,000 based on some of the figures that have been talked about to break even.
Well, I imagine Eddie Hearn has something up his sleeve that he's confident that that will happen. Like, he's not going to do this if he's not guaranteed to make money.
Yeah, I wonder, has he had to dig a bit more into his pocket than he wanted to? I'm just interested to see how this thing goes because it's been talked about for the last few years. I genuinely didn't think it would happen until recently. The mood music around has changed. But before that, I would have been extremely sceptical of it happening.
I'm glad that we're not going to have to talk about it anymore.
The X will fight itself rather than the logistics of the event. And clearly it's going to be more than a fight because it's going to need to be that, I think, to kind of step over into what they want it to be.
There is a kind of a weird thing where, aside from the GAA, for which Croke Park doesn't seem to be an appeal to GAA fans... unless for the biggest games, if you put a rugby game in Croke Park, you put an extra 30,000, 40,000 on the attendance.
If you put concerts on, Coldplay, what was it, Five Nights, Oasis, whatever they played last year, now Oasis will sell out anyway, but you put a, there's a bit of an iffy bill that they will come. Gareth Brooks. Gareth Brooks.
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Chapter 4: What is the significance of Katie Taylor's Croke Park homecoming?
other stadiums like you think of Wembley or the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium or whatever it's these massive they're the same all the way around yeah I haven't been to a show in the Aviva in years so I can't remember the pitch is bigger as well so the hill and the canal are very far away just as a viewing experience it's going to be I'm sure they'll put the screens in above the ring I'm sure they'll there's a lot of filling in the pro park for a non-pitch event like that I don't know what the pitch takes itself yeah
but that's usually I was at Beyonce there and you're standing on the pitch generally so whereas people would be seated at this I presume yeah I don't know what the capacity will be even in terms of it it'd be fascinating to see how they pull it off it would be around the 80 I would imagine depending on where they put it if they put it down at the hill end that closes that into the
Yeah, but you imagine they put a lot of thought into this and they've staged big events and big stadiums before, so you'd hope that they have a really good plan for it.
To be fair to Matchroom, they don't mess things up, in fairness to them. And I heard a few people talking about that during the week, the price point is... And originally when it was kind of first mooted, maybe what was that, maybe three, four years ago, it was like 45 quid sort of territory stuff.
And I just heard people who seem to know a bit more about this during the week saying that they can't see it straying too far from that because it is going to be very price sensitive.
I feel like it's a sort of event. As Rory was saying, it'll turn into an event more than the fight. Are you going to the lady? Exactly. And it won't be long until you know three people who's going and then you'll probably be more likely to buy one yourself. And that's how these things take off, I suppose, which doesn't happen.
with Leinster Rugby it seems it doesn't happen with Dublin GA now it seems we can move on to a broader discussion because one of the things I think one of the things that will centre around this Katie Taylor fight is will she fill Croke Park will she fill it what's the number of it but I saw a tweet of yours Rory about Leinster Rugby as of yesterday morning there was 11,200 tickets sold for the ERC semi-final obviously with Dublin and Lowe it was 16,000 how many from Lowe there 8,900 half at least yeah probably more than half
So the appetite has just sort of gone out of that. As opposed to Dublin match-going fans. I don't know what's happened there. Crook Park is obviously a big factor. Aviva is obviously a big factor.
They're different because the Leinster fans have games all year, every second week for the year. So there's a routine involved and you can buy a season ticket and you're guaranteed whatever it is, nine, ten games at home. Plus European games, plus your very good chance of going to knockouts. This game is outside of the season tickets. That does hinder it.
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Chapter 5: How are Dublin GAA fans reacting to the current state of the team?
And it was, it was a really cool, enjoyable thing to be part of. Yeah. Being on the hill as a kid, you know, my dad would have, you know, this footage of him during the seventies, you know, with a big banner. Like it was a big movement. Yeah. It felt like it had momentum. It felt vibrant. And now you go, and it's that generation of kind of,
greying guys from the 70s and even my greying generation of people who would have gone during the 2000s who are now starting to bring our kids. But I don't see, and it's the same with Leinster, I don't see a lot of people in their teens, 20s and 30s going with their mates. The hill is only one section open, whereas the hill used to be the place to be seen on a summer Sunday.
Look, it was fickle, but there was big numbers at the same time, so you could kind of almost... half of them couldn't turn up, but you still got a big crowd. But the diminishment, I mean, Kieser wrote about it really well this week, about just laying out the numbers. I mean, Conor, you're involved in the Dublin club, aren't you?
There's never been more people playing GAA in Dublin, more kids interested. Numbers are... unbelievable across the board. I'm involved in Rannelly Gales coaching the under sixes. We have huge numbers every week. No pitch, but we have huge numbers. And yet I don't get the sense that the people who are there on a Saturday doing the under six coaches have any great connection with the dubs.
And I think there's a big body of work there from the Dublin County Board to try and re-engage those people.
Yeah, I think you touched on something when you spoke there a minute ago about how they haven't capitalised in terms of...
selling the brand on the ground like we've had a couple of games this year now where the dubs have not done any media after the game because of the great injustice because of the yeah even that like people are not exactly up in arms about that like the squad are but like if that was 20 years ago and Pillar was banned exactly it'd be like it'd be
protest this was the argument for Pillar to come back in just to galvanise the fans do you remember the Colin Lynch thing yeah I mean like he was banned for three months wasn't it at the time I think so he missed out on
All-Ireland semi-final he missed a chunk of good games and he wouldn't have been back for the All-Ireland final and there was a push in Clare in the clubs in Clare apart from the protests that went on and the rows that went on there was a push from the clubs in Clare at the time to delay the start of the county championship so that Colin Lynch's suspension would have been served and he would be back playing
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Chapter 6: What challenges are Leinster Rugby facing with fan engagement?
You played Derry Clonus around then as well? Absolutely fantastic occasions.
Even Ockham this year was the best occasion I've had.
So what happened with Dublin and Loud then? Is it because it was a repeat fixture? Is that part of it? Bank Holiday weekend was a big part of it. Families are different now. The dynamic in families are different as well.
I completely understand. For me, I'm like, well, that's more time to do something.
I'm still not convinced. A lot of people go away, but I'm still not convinced there'll be a bigger crowd, a much bigger crowd this week if it was on this Sunday.
There's another issue which is just, and we don't want this to become that, but there's so much happening in such a short space of time. And it's not just...
I'm not just talking about the guy at Callender which is flawed but there's an awful lot at this time of the year just it just collides and then you have Leinster playing multiple weeks in a row at home and a big final in Bilbao which would have cost people a lot of money to get to
There's an element of sort of like planning, event planning now where you're looking at your calendar and you're saying, you know, so it'd be interesting to see. I'd say now there'd be a big crowd in Kingspan.
Yeah, but sorry, it's like... I feel like when you have these conversations, you can be looking at why aren't people going? And I'd be more looking at why aren't Leinster, why aren't Dublin getting people to go? Yes, 100%. Going to Parnell Park, for example, suddenly the tickets are a premium.
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Chapter 7: What are the implications of Gerard Brennan's recent statement?
I think Jack Neenar, like when you asked me, are you supporting me? That's not, you know, I've never, that's not the way I look at it at all.
I think you said to him, that's not my job. He said it to you a few times.
Yeah, yeah. Do you not support me? I said, look, I like you, but I don't support, like I'm not here to support you. You win the Champions Cup, I'm going to write
he did a great job if you lose I'm going to write that it didn't go so well you know it's not and you know I put my kind of different arguments on the record about where I feel he's the wrong fit so it was it was one of the most yeah it was the most interesting press conference I've ever attended it's not the first time a coach has pushed back
against me or one of my colleagues but it was the fact that he was quoting you know for people who generally tell us that they don't read anything for him to be quoting directly from things I've written and said and kind of coming at me directly with it I wasn't unprepared for it I knew he was annoyed with certain things that I'd said so I was I knew I had a feeling something like this would happen so I had probably
was ready for a chat about it and again as i said the other day it wasn't as if he started shouting at me it was a it was a back and forth it wasn't i haven't heard the audio of it obviously but um sometimes with these kind of things where you get a bit of interaction between one particular journalist and and uh somebody like that in a kind of an imposition of power
the tone can be quite dismissive and condescending. And we saw that quite recently with Jim McGuinness' exchange with Tommy Rooney from Newstalk. I didn't... Okay, I haven't heard it. I'm only just reading the words. I didn't feel like that. It felt like... It wasn't the way I felt in the room. It felt like two people disagreeing in a respectful way. Yeah, yeah.
He didn't seem to be disrespectful towards you.
No, I didn't take it that way, certainly. I mean, look, I'm well able to have a row with someone. He wasn't... No, yeah, that's exactly what it was. It was calm enough. It was kind of slightly exasperated, but he was... And he'd done his homework, so he'd prepared for it. He'd looked you up, but he'd done some research on you.
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Chapter 8: How does the upcoming World Cup affect Irish players abroad?
And it's considered, and it's not this, as you say, getting put up against the wall or the Tommy or anything. I was once summonsed to an Ireland team hotel by a former Ireland manager for a dressing down in private, naturally.
you know and it was spiteful and it was it wasn't nice I just don't think that's a way to go about business if you're in that if you're in that game yeah there's a relationship there between sometimes they get their media manager to ring you that's even worse because they're not they don't their heart isn't in it because it's not their argument and they're ringing you and you're going okay when can we finish this and get back to normal because you're just saying someone else's message I'd much rather like firstly it's far more interesting because we can actually print it and this is what they really think
people can read it and they can make their own minds and it's brilliant it's out in the open so you spoke about it on the rugby podcast yesterday with Cian and Eddie O'Sullivan so you were saying did he take issue with you saying Leinster signed a deal with the devil when they got a South African coach in so he took that literally he seems and look maybe this is a loss in translation in that you know Nian Aber is a native Afrikaans speaker and English is his second language although he's
a very proficient English speaker. And a lot of South Africans seem to have taken a literary that I've called the Antichrist, which when I say, it's not a very positive way of putting it. But I do think they've compromised their entire playing identity.
Their philosophy.
Their philosophy. I think one of the reasons people are not going anymore is because they're not as attractive to watch because of the deal they've done to go after...
this ultra aggressive defence and winning mentality that the South Africans bring to win the trophy that ultimately hasn't materialised so I think that was a bad mistake I also think it was a mistake to hire a coach who's so unaligned with the Ireland team when your players are basically completely dragged between the two places so it's much better to have a coach at Leinster
and a coach at Ireland who played the same way, because it would be far easier for you to do that. And yeah, certainly he's literally, he has decided to take that literally. And surely I would think someone in Leinster would say, well, actually, like it's not particularly complimentary, but he's not calling you the devil.
Like, you know, I don't think, I don't know if I need to say it, but I don't think that Jack Nienaber is actually the Antichrist, but yeah. And also, do we need to be literal in everything we say? Do you have to have a little bit of a flourish when you're writing and talking? It wouldn't be very interesting if it was completely... You have to be careful with your language, of course.
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