IF you walk the concourse of any stadium on the day of a big rugby match, there are people everywhere selling earpieces.

Inflation might have had a say since the last time this writer bought one but at that stage, it was £15 a pop.

These simple yet magical devices transported you on to the field.

My biggest discovery during a year covering Ireland and Ulster was that television viewers are far better served than anyone inside a rugby ground.

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There were nights at Ravenhill that you were a mile from the bottom of rucks, served only by the sporting equivalent of Michael Scott’s flatscreen plasma TV in the corner of the ground.

The only saving grace at international games was these earpieces.

They were all tuned to the frequency of the referee’s microphone.

It took you on to the pitch. You could feel the collisions, connect the heavy breathing to the grey plumes of breath that escaped the scrum and headed off skyward.

This thug’s game played by gentlemen could be an aural assault some nights.

But what the access to the referee’s mic gave you was an innate understanding of how a referee came to their decisions.

It just so happened that I was having this very conversation with a couple of Gaelic football referees last week.

And........

© The Irish News