To prove the remarkable range of pained expressions which can grace the human face, all you need is 16 people and a rope. This was shown repeatedly to the delight of the crowd in Ballina, Co Mayo on Sunday as teams of eight stalwart men or women distorted their faces and strained every muscle to go in opposite directions during the Irish

National Tug-of-War Championships.

Coaches gave an impressive display of histrionics themselves as they urged on their teams of eight. They fell to their knees. They crawled about on all fours. Folded in a Groucho Marx walk, they paced up and down the line of heaving bodies, their faces red as they shouted encouragement and tactics.

"Tight, tight, tight. Pressure, lads, pressure. Don't give it to them! Keep it on. Push! Push! Ohhhhhhhhh, yes!" At times you began to wonder were they all in labour. "There's a culture of tugo-war in

Ireland that stretches back hundreds and hundreds of years," says

Hugh Conway, chairman of the Irish Tug-O-War Association.

"Historically, every village has had its teams."

The basic rules are simple - hold the rope in the accepted grip;

let no part of the body but the feet touch the ground; and pull until one team drags the other across the centre dividing line.

Teams want to get "a good drop" - a good strong, leaning position as the judge drops his hands and signals the start of a pull. They try to work themselves backwards by "heaves", when they all quickly pull together and, they hope, catch the other team unawares. A good heave is executed with military precision. Once the team feels the other team "soften", it marches backwards - left, right, left, right

- and digs in with steelplated heels to "consolidate" the territory gain.

The competition favourite was clearly Sean Bourke's yellow-jerseyed women's team, all local talent backed by Hughes's

Pub. Pulling against the only other women's team, from Coolock in

Dublin, the Hughes women had the crowd beside itself as they were nearly dragged over the line with the championship at stake.

One sturdy woman in her Sunday best gave motherly encouragement from the sidelines: "Come on, women! Come on! Oh, Jesus wept, would they ever get up and hold the rope . . ." To the roar of a crowd fearful of seeing Ballina shamed, the women dug in, heaved, and resolutely marched the Coolock crowd forward to defeat. The training

- 15mile runs, four days a week, lifting of barrels of concrete on pulleys - had paid off.

"Once you get started, you're addicted," says Josephene Hanahoe of the sport. The "anchor" woman at the back of Bourke's eight, she adds: "There's just something about it." Teammate Ann Ward is less circumspect: "Oh, I do it because I'm a lunatic."

Meanwhile, the men's championships are proving that when action meets an equal and opposite reaction, the world stands still.

For a while, the pull becomes a staring match. Then there are long, exhaled "shhhhhhh" sounds as one team gains a few inches.

In the end it is, once again, the men of Boley, Co Wexford, who take the trophy. The entire team is Kehoes - brothers, uncles, and cousins, with three generations of tug-of-war history. Anchor Martin

Kehoe is also an All-Ireland ploughing champion. They've won 73

titles since 1976, and it's usually mostly Kehoes who represent

Ireland internationally in tugof-war. "We're the best team in

Ireland," grins James Kehoe, surrounded by blue-shirted brothers and nephews.

An hour later, the boys of Wexford make their way homewards with yet another trophy. On the streets of Ballina, the Hughes girls are whooping it up, glorying in a heroines' parade of honking cars.

Triumphant, Sean Bourke holds the gold trophy aloft out a window.