Saturday 14th of November

Harry Hayden (0:15)

Good evening, you're very welcome to The Big Red Bench with myself, Harry Hayden, keeping you company for the next hour on this Saturday evening in what's been another busy day of sport. Despite the international break, it just does not stop, of course, two massive games for Ireland's football and rugby teams this evening. Strange, strange, they're clashing, giving us a real dilemma now on this Saturday evening. In football, Ireland gearing up to face Austria in their penultimate Nations League game. I'll be hearing from Off The Ball's Ben Symes, who's on the ground for us in Linz, and also from Irish captain Nathan Collins, who of course is returning to that squad. And we'll keep an eye out for the team news, which should be out before the end of the hour. And in rugby, it's been a crazy day of Rugby Wales beating New Zealand for the first time in 72 years, absolutely crazy game. But all eyes of course will be on the Aviva as Ireland take on Fiji in the Nations Championship. That one gets underway at 10 past 8 Hopefully should be a routine one for Andy Farrell's side.

Looking at some of the other sport across the day, massive win for St. Fimbar's as they retain their Munster Komogi title, a brilliant achievement for them as they beat out Galtier by a score of two goals and 13 points to two goals and nine points. And we wish them all the best for the All-Ireland Series, unbelievable. They never won the Munster Komogi title for last year and then they win two in a row. And of course in basketball, what a win it was for the Irish women's side over Azerbaijan. I caught up with their captain Edel Thornton earlier, so we'll hear a bit from her in a little bit. But as I said, first up, we'll look ahead to what was a massive clash between Ireland and Austria in the Nations League. And earlier I caught up with Off The Ball's Ben Symes, who's on the ground over in Linz.

Right, we're delighted to be joined by Off The Ball's Ben Symes as we look ahead to the final, or the penultimate Nations League game for the Republic of Ireland as they face Austria later today. Ben, you're over there in Linz. How are things over there in Austria?

Ben Symes (2:04)

Cold, Harry, very cold. This is certainly not an environment that I would want to be playing football in. I was watching the Ireland 21 team last night in Finland in the snow in Tampere in Finland. Well, it might be sunny skies here in Linz, I can promise you the temperatures are pretty much the exact same. It's the third biggest city in Austria. There's not a lot going on.

Definitely one of the more quiet trips, I think, that Ireland fans will be on in terms of the city they're going to. But as you can imagine, when Ireland fans are everywhere to go, they're they're making themselves heard around the place.

Harry Hayden (2:39)

Yeah, I suppose, look, before we look directly into the game, like, you know, the last international break, it was like you couldn't have scripted something like that if you tried in terms of the amount of drama that was involved. And obviously it was a new international break as well, which I think people forget about, like, and that there was four games, we never saw that before.

But like the fact, you know, we started in Pristina, then we went to depression, then we had a pit stop in Dublin, then we had to go to Northern Serbia, and obviously you had everything that was happening in between the two Israel games and the press conferences. It was just chaos. It feels nice to us now to just have a regular international break with one away game and one home game, doesn't it?

Ben Symes (3:16)

Yeah, I mean, from a selfish point of view as well, it certainly feels nice to not be traveling all around Europe following a geopolitical story rather than a sports story.

But yeah, I think everyone in that camp is just quite happy to see most of the back of it. Obviously there's still investigations ongoing regarding the incident at half time in the game in Serbia and the racism allegations that were by the fans in the stadium in the Brest and towards Ademita. Look, I was in that stadium. I thought I heard quite clearly what was being said. Those investigations are still ongoing with both sides. So the story isn't completely over. But those players in the dressing room will be really, really happy to get back to just playing football and not have to deal with any of that outside noise. And I think most of the journalists as well will be reasonably happy to get back to the folks in other football.