IRELAND legend Tony Ward elicited a passionate response with his latest column in The Irish Independent.
The 69-year-old argued that the opening weekend of the URC demonstrated that rugby has left football and Gaelic football behind in entertainment value.
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He wrote: “From a personal perspective and with apologies to no one, I’m immersed in our three main footballing codes: rugby, Gaelic football and soccer.
“But sadly the latter two in terms of quality and entertainment, when compared with times past, are an unmitigated mess and we’ll leave it at that.
“Rugby isn’t perfect, far from it.
“But tell me what we are witnessing in the oval ball code isn’t much better entertainment on a game-by-game basis.”
These sorts of opinion pieces always showcase the tribalism that’s present across Irish sporting circles.
And so it proved again with the majority of the replies to the article taking issue with his claim for being too reactionary.
One person fired back: “Elitism truly alive and well with the rugby folks.”
While Donncha added: What the f**k is he talking about, with respect. Rugby is in terrible shape.”
Lastly, Déaglán stated: “Yes it was a great game. Can Mr Ward and The Indo not just leave it at that? Instead of having a pop at other sports.”
While it was a bit of a sweeping statement on Ward’s part, it’s hard to argue that he doesn’t have a point around Gaelic football.
After all, the GAA is openly employing Jim Gavin and his Football Review Committee to draw up a list of rule changes to try and make the game more attractive.
There’s also been a noticeable drop in Championship attendances over the past five seasons with supporters clearly feeling less enthused about going to watch 70 minutes of mostly hand-passing.
His stance that football has declined as a spectacle is less solid, however.
While some swathes of football followers believe the more systematic approaches of modern teams has drained the game of individuality, the quality across the English Premier League has never been higher.
The League of Ireland is also enjoying a boom time when it comes to crowd sizes.
But the indications from the opening weekend of URC fare are indeed very promising.
The biggest margin of victory across all six matches was only five points.
It’s not just the competitiveness that stood out either as Munster and Connacht played out one of the most exhilarating interpros in recent memory.
Meanwhile Leinster and Ulster banked impressive wins – with the latter defeating the defending champions Glasgow 20-19 thanks to a last-gasp try.