OKAY, so I am angry and I am going to let that anger drift into this column, a column normally devoted to the world of Irish sport.

We'll get to the sport presently. I'll even share my views on Ireland's latest World Cup adventure against Cyprus last week and our chances of getting to South Africa.

I might even annoy a few of you with my contentious view that the Compromise Rules series about to kick off between Ireland and Australia in Perth is essentially a waste of time.

I'll probably upset a few Munster fans out there by telling you that Leinster's performance in Saturday night's win over Wasps was as good as any produced by an Irish team in European action.

But first a non-party political broadcast inspired by Saturday's trip to the RDS to watch the aforementioned stroll for the Leinster rugby team in their biggest ever Heineken Cup win over English opposition.

Before I left my Co. Meath hideout to venture out in public once again I spoke to my mother, a 70-year-old with a Catholic interest in sport who happens to think that Brian O'Driscoll is completely over-rated, but that's another day's work altogether.

On Saturday my mother was in no mood to talk about Dricco's chances of hanging on to the Irish captaincy under new coach Declan Kidney ahead of the autumn internationals.

Nor was she too worried about the fact that Giovanni Trapattoni just won't pick Andy Reid no matter what the Sunderland midfielder does or doesn't do, depending on which back page headline you read.

Only one issue is close to my mother's heart right now, the same issue that is dominating and in some cases intimidating the day to day lives of every man and woman her age and older in this wonderful little country of ours.

On Tuesday of last week, as some of us were sweating over Trapattoni's team selection for the subsequently mundane game against Cyprus that followed, the government of this land were insulting my mother and her likes in Brian Lenihan's hairshirt budget.

Of particular interest to my mother's generation was the decision to means test the medical card for anyone over 70 years of age.

Like many her age my mother, who suffers from chronic asthma by the way, will fail the initial means test proposed for no reason other than the fact that herself and those closest to her have spent their lives working hard, not just for themselves but for the future of the country that has just kicked them in the teeth.

To facilitate a saving

of some *100 million Lenihan Junior - whose father was part of the political generation in charge of this country at a time when some of his peers ripped us and the state off at will - proposed axing the medical cards previously available as a right to my mother and her peers.

It is fair to say that her blood is still curdling at

the cheek of Lenihan, Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Brian Cowen and their Fianna Fail-Green Party alliance to even consider this proposal.

Now, while she prepares to march on the Dail (Parliament) in a one-woman protest if no one else wants to know, we'll get back to sport, but you will soon discover the link that inspired this rant in the first place.

On Saturday afternoon, as the rugby traffic converged on Ballsbridge ahead of the Leinster-Wasps game and turned the area into a typical Dublin jam, I had a brainwave.

Instead of wading my way through the main road to the RDS I opted to cut down the side of Lansdowne Road and across by the AIB Bank Center to the home of Leinster rugby.

It was, I have to say, quite a brilliant idea. While many of those sat in front of me in the queue were still battling their way through traffic I was enjoying a cup of tea and a sandwich or two in the press room at the RDS.

By then, however, my blood was boiling as much as my mother's having driven down the side of the new Lansdowne Road stadium that is rapidly filling the skyline in Dublin 4.

Rising towards the clouds and the heavens above it makes for an impressive looking building, even this early in its creation.

In time no doubt it will be a suitable home for Irish rugby and soccer, one the IRFU and the FAI can be proud of.

That's not my goal at the moment. As I drove past the new Lansdowne on Saturday I thought of my mother and her asthma and the government's attempt to remove her right to proper medical care at a time in her life when she will probably need it more than ever.

Consider the facts. That prat Lenihan and his Cowen cronies wanted to deny my mother her medical card to make a saving of roughly *100 million.

That's rich coming from the same government which has already signed off on a capital payment of some *190million towards the redevelopment of Lansdowne Road when we already have a stadium almost twice as big and perfectly adequate for all our international sporting needs at Croke Park.

Now you tell me who deserves our public money more -- those rebuilding Lansdowne Road, or those who have served their country well down the years but are now expected to fend for themselves when it comes to health care at the most precarious time of their lives.

Sorry for the non-party political broadcast, but I just had to get this off my chest. And if you think I'm ranting -- or barking mad -- then steer well clear of my mother.

PS: As I write this column the government has just announced a climb-down of sorts on the medical card issue. Clearly Mr. Lenihan has heard my mother is coming his way!

Sideline Views

SOCCER: Nice to see that Henrik Larsson hasn't forgotten how much Celtic did for him in his football career. With United hosting Celtic in the Champions League on Tuesday night the views of Larsson on the clash between two of his former clubs were always going to be interesting. Asked which team he would be shouting for at Old Trafford the Super Swede sided very definitely with Celtic. Clearly a man who knows which side his bread is buttered on.

SOCCER: The Irish soccer team is currently a little like the budget -- not great to look at and nobody really knows where we're going to end up at the end of it. Last week's performance against Cyprus was patchy to say the least, but they won. With Bulgaria struggling there's a great chance to make a real push for South Africa but be warned -- the journey won't be pretty if the Cyprus win was anything to go by.

RUGBY: Great quote from the Ulster coach Matt Williams after his side were left frustrated by the performance of the referee in Saturday's rather damaging Heineken Cup defeat to Harlequins in London. "I don't talk to referees," revealed an irate Williams afterwards. "It's like complaining to your mother-in-law about your wife. It doesn't get you too far." Men of a certain age and disposition will know exactly what he means.

Hero Of the Week

THE FAI organized a minute's applause in honor of the late great Noel O'Reilly before the 1-0 win over Cyprus last week, and richly deserved it was too. Even more fitting on the night was the tribute paid by man of the match Damien Duff who produced a mixture of magic and endeavor that the bold Noel would have been proud of.

Idiot Of the Week

THE former Australian Compromise Rules team manager Kevin Sheedy, the man in charge of the hooligans who represented his country in Ireland two years ago, branded his Irish counterpart Sean Boylan a leprechaun in an Aussie paper this week. What an insult. How would he feel if Boylan branded him as a Wallaby wally? Or worse in a land where most of the people are descended from criminals.