City exults as Saints go marching in

HOLD THE BACK PAGE: THOSE OF us involved in sport – be it as participants or watchers – must believe in outside influences, and especially so after what occurred in Superbowl XLIV this past week.

For sure, the claiming of the Vince Lombardi trophy by the New Orleans Saints was uplifting and damn near spiritual which, I must admit, is in keeping with my one and only visit to a Superbowl which, as it happened, was in the city known as “The Big Easy” in pre-Hurricane Katrina times.

Even then, there was something spiritual about the Superbowl. On that occasion, in 1997, the Green Bay Packers’ Desmond Howard won the MVP award; his team-mate Reggie White claimed God had finally blessed him for a lifetime of observation; and people leaving the Superdome after the cheese-heads had beaten the New England Patriots were invited by loudspeaker to receive a bible by phoning 1-800-CALL-GOD.

To cap it all, the strategic placing of laser supertroopers meant fans observed a magical halo hovering over the darkened sky.

This was a Superbowl that also underlined the brilliance of Packers quarter-back Brett Favre, a player with the “Superman” tattoo and who had bounced back from spending almost two months in a rehab clinic the previous year to overcome his addiction to prescription drugs.

I remember in the bowels of the stadium afterwards, one after another of the new champions started off their spiels by thanking The Lord for having won their Superbowl rings.

Surreal and spiritual as it all was, this was a time when New Orleans rejoiced in its carnival atmosphere but lived with seedy and dangerous realities.

The bars around Bourbon Street jumped to the sound of jazz but I recall the cab driver on the short trip into the heart of the city recounting how up to half-a-dozen drivers had been killed in the previous few months and the danger for our party was reinforced when one member went missing overnight, insisting to this day he was “kidnapped” in one of those sell-your-kidney-for-money stories that everyone took to be an urban myth. Over a decade on, he’s a alive and well and, to the best of my knowledge, still has both kidneys.

Now, though, Superbowl XXXI – as that Packers-Patriots one was – belongs to another time, a time before Hurricane Katrina virtually wiped out the city and sucked the heart and soul from those who survived the catastrophe. The past few years have been spent slowly, agonisingly slowly, getting back on their feet. And the story of the Saints is one that mirrors that revival.

If anything, the win by the New Orleans Saints underpinned yet again the importance of sport. The victory by a team who only five years ago were homeless because of the effects of the hurricane is extraordinary.

There was even conjecture that the franchise would be lost to this city that care forgot and, yet, those behind the Saints insisted on returning to the city and giving back hope to its people.

While the vanquished Indianapolis Colts team returned home to a welcome of a miserly total of 11 fans waiting to offer their condolences and support at the airport, the Saints arrived to a party to end all parties.

Reports confirmed that the players were taken through the thronged French Quarter on a dozen Mardis Gras floats, where they tossed 1.8 million strands of gold and black beads to their delirious supporters.

This was a Superbowl that the Saints were not supposed to win. This time the underdogs came good and caused the upset of upsets. But this win is more than that because it reaffirms the role that sport plays in uplifting a people’s spirit.

In the United States, pro football is a religion; and in New Orleans, the Saints are a religion of their own. See it as another step in the city’s revival.

League success breeds winning habit

SO, THE National Football League returned with more of a whimper than a seismic bang with many of the teams in action in the opening series of matches bearing about as much resemblance to what they will look like come championship time as a fake Louis Vuitton bag when placed alongside the real thing.

Of course, managers know league conditions are a million miles away from championship days . . . but the days when the league counted as nothing more than an exercise in preparing for “the big one” should be consigned to the scrappage heap like an old car.

Kerry, more than anyone else, have shown that winning in the league breeds a winning habit that can be utilised come championship time.

Which is why Joe Kernan should be concerned at the lethargic display of his new pupils in Galway and why Dublin’s Pat Gilroy should be pleased at the manner in which so many fringe players kept the foot to the pedal in Killarney.

The other bonus for Gilroy is he has finally uncovered some physically big players, like Eamonn Fennell and Michael McAuley.

Interestingly, though, the bookmakers took not a blind bit of notice of the outcome of matches, such as Dublin’s win over Kerry or Derry’s victory over Tyrone.

Paddy Power has installed Tyrone as 5 to 2 favourites to regain Sam while holders Kerry are priced as 11 to 4 second favourites. The Dubs are available at 9 to 1 and you can catch Meath – last year’s semi-finalists – at a high-priced 50 to 1.

Poster girl Vonn making a big splash

THE NAME of Lindsey Vonn may not – yet – mean too much to the great unwashed who only tune into downhill skiing once every four years when the Winter Olympics come around.

But the 25-year-old American – the poster girl of the US ski team with her image splashed across the latest edition of Sports Illustrated in what some say is a highly provocative pose – could turn her appearances in Vancouver over the next couple of weeks into a licence to print money.

The two-time reigning overall World Cup champion is considered a multiple-medal prospect for the Americans at Vancouver despite picking up a shin injury in her pre-Olympic workouts in Austria. Vonn starts her medal quest in the super-combined alpine race tomorrow.

However, it is Vonn’s decision to pose for SI – under the tag line of, “America’s Best Woman Skier Ever” – in an exaggerated tuck position that is causing some hot flushes with critics, who point out that over the past 60 years only four per cent of all covers in the magazine have portrayed women. And, it is further pointed out, “when females are featured on the cover of SI, they are more likely than not to be in sexualised poses and not in action”. More often than not, as we’ve found down the years, such brouhaha tends to add to an athlete’s marketability. The old adage of there being no such thing as bad publicity springs to mind.

Well-grounded McIlroy a sponsor's dream

WE CAN all rest assured there is no danger of Rory McIlroy – undoubtedly the hottest young golfer on the planet and now up to a world ranking of seventh at the ripe old age of 20 – falling into the same social trap as one Tiger Woods.

Whereas Woods was cocooned in his own world to a large extent, McIlroy – apart from being a multi-millionaire mega star on the golfing circuit – has his feet well-grounded on planet earth and seeks, as much as he can, to have a normal life. He goes to Ulster rugby matches. He goes to the cinema and out for a drink with his friends, among whom he numbers Irish internationals Paddy Wallace and Darren Cave. And he also likes to put in the occasional appearance at Old Trafford.

Another thing in his favour is he has other sporting interests outside golf, the most recent of which is taking out part ownership – along with his manager Chubby Chandler and fellow tour player Lee Westwood – in a couple of racehorses, one of which won a Group One race in South Africa last weekend at odds of 16 to 1. Unfortunately for McIlroy, who had other things on his mind at the time in attempting to defend the Dubai Desert Classic title, the win caught him by surprise; he hadn’t put a single penny on the horse winning.

McIlroy also has an interest in another horse called Never Up Never In, which, he assures us, lest there be any barstool jokes connecting its name to any of Tiger’s off-course transgressions, is purely “a golfing term”. It was interesting to observe McIlroy’s body language the other day in Dublin, where he took in every word spoken by champion national hunt jockey Ruby Walsh. McIlroy was like a sponge soaking in water, every word uttered by the jockey – wondering if he’d made the right choice with Kauto Star for the Cheltenham Gold Cup and why Dunquib’s ante-post odds are too tight among other things – taken in with the respect that one top sportsman shows of another.

The thing is, McIlroy always shows respect to everyone in all of his dealings, which makes him a media and a sponsor’s dream . . . and which can only reap further benefits for him when he spends more time in the United States. It is the reason why there will be a queue of sponsors lining up to be associated with him; and why those who already have him – among them Titleist, Jumeirah and Lough Erne – know they are on to a winner.

McIlroy’s current deals are tied up for another couple of years. As he explained to me, “What we’ve tried to do is make them all end in 2012, see where we are and go on from there.” Before the time comes for contract negotiations down the line, the Northern Irishman has a lot of golf to play: starting with the Accenture Matchplay in Arizona next week.

Whether or not Mr Tiger Woods will be back playing in Arizona remains to be confirmed, although the latest whisperings are that he won’t be seen again until the low-key Tavistock Cup in March. Here’s McIlroy on the subject: “It’d be fantastic (if he played in Arizona) . . . the game needs him, he’s the best player in the world. It’d be great if he was back doing what he does best, which is play golf. I think!”

Sun too hot for sports-mad Aussies

F I N A L S T R A W: IT WOULD seem the Australians, arguably the most fanatical supporters of sport to be found anywhere, have an Achilles heel – the sun! At least that's the excuse cricketer Shaun Marsh came up with during the week to explain why only about 8,000 spectators bothered to turn up for the country's one-day international with the West Indies in Adelaide, a crowd which has gone down as the smallest attendance for a ODI involving the Aussies.

When asked to explain away the poor attendance in a country where people would turn up to see two wombats wrestling, Marsh offered the explanation that "at the end of the day it was a 40-degree heat day". The crowd was the smallest for a match involving Australia dating back to 1992. A measure of the drawing power of sport in Australia can be gauged from the fact the country had the biggest crowd for any sporting event (in a confined stadium) in 2009, with 99,251 attending the Aussie Rules Grand Final in Melbourne.

The attendance of 82,538 for the Australian rugby league final was the fourth-highest attended event anywhere last year.

For a small country (population wise), Ireland doesn't fare badly at all. The attendances at the All-Ireland football and All-Ireland hurling finals in 2009 ranked fifth and sixth in the table.