The view from down under

[caption id="attachment_66974" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Maria Bello as Jane Timoney. "]

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Newspapers vary when it comes to reporting the outcome of major sporting events. For example, the Echo had to be neutral before last Sunday's All Ireland and any subsequent reporting can't be suggesting that there was more support for Dublin than Kerry though there is a certain sense that Dublin were due after a 16 year drought.

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The Irish dailies, even though they publish in Dublin, are also required to walk the wire. Kerry is in their market too. But the All Ireland was a sporting event involving two counties in the same country.

When it comes to a game between two countries, it's a different matter altogether. So the Irish papers duly crowed and roared about Ireland's stunning victory over Australia in the Rugby World Cup on Saturday.

Read the Irish reports and it's all about how the Irish won the game. Read the Aussie papers and it's a different story. It's how the Wallabies lost to Ireland in that titanic clash in Auckland.

This from the Sydney Morning Herald: "It doesn't get any more embarrassing than this for Australian rugby. The Wallabies were yet again shown to be second-rate by one of the also-rans of world rugby. Their World Cup campaign is in tatters following a deplorable performance against Ireland at Eden Park, when they chose the wrong moment to completely fall apart, suffering a 15-6 drubbing."

Now there were positive words for the Irish performance down the page but at the top you wouldn't think the Irish lads had much to do with the result at all. But of course they did, and now the Aussies have to takes it up a few notches or they'll be packing their tuckerbags and waltzing home across the Tasman Sea.

A TIMONEY COMEBACK?

Big things happening in Miami where police chief Miguel Exposito has been shown the door as top cop after various controversies. Exposito, as readers may recall, took over from John Timoney after the election of a new mayor, Tomás Regaldo.

Regaldo would have done better to hang on to the Dublin-born Timoney, whose time as police chief under former mayor Manny Diaz is looking more glowing by the minute.

This from the Miami Herald: "Newly tapped City Manager Johnny Martinez - the third manager since Mr. Regalado took office - suspended the chief for insubordination after Mr. Exposito decided to remove three of his assistant chiefs and put them in desk jobs. Mr. Martinez had asked the chief to hold off on any demotions. So Mr. Exposito parsed definitions and didn't "demote" - he just didn't give them any authority.

"Oh, the drama. There was hope Miami had overcome such machinations, particularly after having a relatively good run under Mayor Manny Diaz and Police Chief John Timoney. What the city needs now is stability and for elected and appointed officials to follow the clear rules that the city charter contains."

And this from an earlier editorial: "In searching for a replacement, integrity and experience should be first and foremost in administrators' minds. Ideally, the city would conduct a national search for the best candidates. That's how Mr. Timoney came to lead the department.

Fiscal reality, however, says that the revenue-strapped city likely can't afford to bring someone with a successful track record of running a department in a complex urban city from outside. No matter. Wherever a new chief is found, integrity, accountability and experience must be the watchwords."

Eh, IF can only assume that the good burghers of Miami are aware that Timoney never left town so is still very much on the inside. A comeback for the man perhaps?

AND A NEW TIMONEY

Detective Jane Timoney makes her debut this week on NBC's "Prime Suspect," the U.S. version of the British hit familiar to PBS viewers. Lots of Irish angles in this one, not least the Timoney character who has to battle a lot of fixed ideas in the squad room regarding the role of women in the NYPD.

The website Philadelphia.com makes the point that the change of name - from Jane Tennison in the British version to Timoney in the American - is actually a tribute to John Timoney who, before he headed the police in Miami, was chief in Philly.

Meanwhile, readers would keep an eye out for the Irish Echo in the new series, especially, IF understands, in episode four.

THEY SAID

Given the sheer banality of the cast who are fighting it out for the Aras job, the arrival of McGuinness has certainly transformed everything. It also transforms the presidential campaign from some sort of bizarre 26-county beauty competition into an all-Ireland event. Not only that, but this decision will send shockwaves through the Irish political establishment.

For one thing, it seems Sinn Féin has truly pulled something of a political masterstroke on Fianna Fail. While the former party of government spent the past week fervently wishing the whole business of the presidency would go away, Sinn Féin has been working away discreetly in the background, planning this political ambush." --- Tom McGurk in the Sunday Business Post.

"The entry of Martin McGuinness into the presidential election race has transformed the contest. The move has put paid to the notion that it was going to be the dullest ever presidential election. The decision of Sinn Féin to run McGuinness, the North's Deputy First Minister, has upped the stakes for all of the parties and individuals involved in the election. It also poses a question for voters in the Republic about the kind of presidency they want and the image of the country they would like to see pro-

jected across the world. McGuinness's leading role in the IRA during the appalling violence of the Troubles is no secret. Neither is the fact that he played a key role in bringing the campaign of violence to an end." --- Stephen Collins in the Irish Times.

 

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