Victoria Madigan from Dublin 6 opened her letter by declaring her “umbrage” at Burke’s “generalisation” about Irish rugby fans, and Des Foley – getting in touch from Brittany in France – described the “stereotyping” of Irish rugby fans as “unfair.”This bickering is not a new phenomenon. It is hard to remember a more wounding weekend in the modern history of Irish rugby. The really interesting metric will be the TV audiences because this is where Irish rugby made the greatest gains in the bandwagon era. But at the turn of the century, the audience for Irish rugby was nothing like that. Whatever you may feel about bandwagons, it was the best thing that ever happened Irish rugby.

Source: The Irish Times February 09, 2026 13:30 UTC