God that was great........the Irish six nations campaign documentary is just over and i so enjoyed it, but more important than that i think i learned something tonight.
Life is generally hard work and mediocrity, but if you stick that out, if you stay at it, then life will be punctuated by beautiful moments, moments when your heart rises with joy and you realise that it's beautiful and precious.
I've had loads of those moments, moments of absolute beauty, Horgans try against England, the birth of my two daughters, the final whistle in the 96 final, my first Christmas morning in our first house, winning a huge contract, a morning in Vienna, a chat this evening with my daughters, a walk on the beach, coming round a corner in Seville, and there are a few that i should not share really, intimate moments of Joy that make life worth living.
There are terrible moments too, the death of my dad, losing contracts, the evening Joy stopped breathing, stuff that would rock me sideways but then i remember that there will be more moments of ectasy in the future.
It's the stuff in the middle i find hard, the boring stuff, the slogging stuff, the fighting through stuff.... but tonight showed me something, it showed me the value of that mediocrity... without that there will be no moments to look forward too, without that investment there will be no reward, I'll be a spectator, and i don't want to be a spectator, i want to be a player, to fight it out, to take the knocks, to persevere and to take the chance of losing as well as the chance of winning....that's the stuff that makes life worth living.
There's a moment in the documentary where all is on the line, where the whistle has not gone, and Ronan O'Gara is lying on the ground unconcious, and at that very moment, when the prize was in sight, when it was almost there, John Hayes forgot about the ball, forgot about the game and went to his friend...and that moment was beautiful, it showed the courage of a man and the real place of sport.
Sport is important because it can bring moments of beauty to a life, like art can, but never ever at all costs.. and that's what i learned tonight, life is precious, sport can make life beautiful, but it's life that's precious.
If you get a chance to see it..... do.
