WE’VE BARELY SETTLED into our seats at the counter in the downtown dive bar for a pre-dinner pint when the fella next door is buying us shots of vodka.
“Irish? I heard you guys like to drink!” says Carlos, a Chicago native, as he orders a couple of the extremely generous shots from the barman in Rossi’s.
Carlos is one of many Chicagoans who seem to be happy to have more Irish folk in their city this week.
A lady in the lift at the hotel says it’s her “biggest dream” to visit Ireland, especially given that her husband is Irish. She’s not sure where in the country his roots are, nor is she sure how far back they go, but Ireland clearly means something special to her.
The woman behind the counter in Stan’s Donuts asks for a name to put on the tea order and is delighted to hear it’s Murray.
“That’s my surname,” she says. “You Irish?”
There are lots of Murrays in Illinois, she explains, with Bill being the most famous and funniest. Her own strand of the Murrays hail from the Caribbean, so we’ll have to do some digging on that.
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Even the All Blacks are happy to greet the Irish crew when we turn up at their swanky team hotel. The Kiwi journalists prove to be a friendly bunch, as are the New Zealand Rugby staffers, who seem to have a very open policy towards the media.
There are a few All Blacks players dotted around the lobby doing relaxed one-on-one interviews, which have sadly disappeared from Ireland’s media operation in the last few years. The All Blacks are on the charm offensive, of course, but few who work in the media would take exception to that.
The courtyard at the All Blacks' team hotel in Chicago. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
Head coach Scott Robertson warmly greets everyone when he arrives to do his press conference, asking to say a few words before the questions begin.
“It’s awesome to be here in Chicago,” he says. “First, I’d like to thank the city for turning it on for us.
“It’s been great to hear Kiwi voices, but there’s a lot of Irish here as well.”
There are plenty more of them on the way later this week, with the bulk of the 60,000+ crowd at Soldier Field this Saturday expected to be supporting the team in green.
Robertson is clearly intent on the All Blacks avoiding the mistakes of 2016 when they took their eye off the ball and underperformed against a brilliantly prepared Joe Schmidt team.
The Kiwis are doing more than their fair share of commercial work again and New Zealand Rugby certainly has a huge focus on improving its financial footing in the US, but ‘Razor’ continually underlines that it’s all about the game on Saturday.
The All Blacks are using the University of Illinois as their training base this week. That’s where Ireland trained in 2016, infamously hearing gunshots close to the training pitch, which was in bad condition.
Jason ‘Dutchy’ Holland swings by to say hello to the familiar Irish faces after Robertson departs, informing us that he’s heading to Ireland for another visit when the All Blacks’ tour of Scotland, England, and Wales is done.
He’ll be leaving the All Blacks set-up for good at that point, but he says there is no grand plan for what comes next in his coaching career. Holland has always said he’d enjoy the chance to go back to Ireland as a coach at some stage.
He and the other New Zealand coaches don’t seem to be buying the chat about Ireland being rusty for this game. Robertson underlines that many of these players were involved in the Lions Tests relatively recently, while he mentions Ireland’s “cohesion” more than once. He even mistakenly refers to Ireland as “the Lions” at one stage.
With captain Caelan Doris back from injury and Ireland declaring everyone else fit and available, the Kiwis are expecting a massive challenge.
After the articles have been written and the videos have been recorded, it’s time for another local delicacy.
Where better to sample the Italian beef sandwich than Mr Beef, the old-school spot that inspired The Bear, an award-winning show starring Jeremy Allen White.
For fans of the show, it feels strange to queue up and order in a shop you know so well from the TV screen.
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The ‘elegant dining room’ next door is where the staff in the fictional Bear would eat their ‘family’ meals. It’s where we devour the glorious sandwiches filled with thinly sliced roast beef and peppers. The entire sandwich is dipped into beef juice before serving, so it’s quite the handful, but it lives up to the billing.
Mikey G, one of the gregarious chefs behind the counter, comes in to check on everyone.
“You like my hot peppers?” he roars in his distinctive Chicagoan accent. “Good, good.
“Don’t try them anywhere else but here or they’ll be coming out hot the other end!”
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The Kiwi welcome, dive bars, Murrays, and the Bear
WE’VE BARELY SETTLED into our seats at the counter in the downtown dive bar for a pre-dinner pint when the fella next door is buying us shots of vodka.
“Irish? I heard you guys like to drink!” says Carlos, a Chicago native, as he orders a couple of the extremely generous shots from the barman in Rossi’s.
Carlos is one of many Chicagoans who seem to be happy to have more Irish folk in their city this week.
A lady in the lift at the hotel says it’s her “biggest dream” to visit Ireland, especially given that her husband is Irish. She’s not sure where in the country his roots are, nor is she sure how far back they go, but Ireland clearly means something special to her.
The woman behind the counter in Stan’s Donuts asks for a name to put on the tea order and is delighted to hear it’s Murray.
“That’s my surname,” she says. “You Irish?”
There are lots of Murrays in Illinois, she explains, with Bill being the most famous and funniest. Her own strand of the Murrays hail from the Caribbean, so we’ll have to do some digging on that.
Even the All Blacks are happy to greet the Irish crew when we turn up at their swanky team hotel. The Kiwi journalists prove to be a friendly bunch, as are the New Zealand Rugby staffers, who seem to have a very open policy towards the media.
There are a few All Blacks players dotted around the lobby doing relaxed one-on-one interviews, which have sadly disappeared from Ireland’s media operation in the last few years. The All Blacks are on the charm offensive, of course, but few who work in the media would take exception to that.
Head coach Scott Robertson warmly greets everyone when he arrives to do his press conference, asking to say a few words before the questions begin.
“It’s awesome to be here in Chicago,” he says. “First, I’d like to thank the city for turning it on for us.
“It’s been great to hear Kiwi voices, but there’s a lot of Irish here as well.”
There are plenty more of them on the way later this week, with the bulk of the 60,000+ crowd at Soldier Field this Saturday expected to be supporting the team in green.
Robertson is clearly intent on the All Blacks avoiding the mistakes of 2016 when they took their eye off the ball and underperformed against a brilliantly prepared Joe Schmidt team.
The Kiwis are doing more than their fair share of commercial work again and New Zealand Rugby certainly has a huge focus on improving its financial footing in the US, but ‘Razor’ continually underlines that it’s all about the game on Saturday.
The All Blacks are using the University of Illinois as their training base this week. That’s where Ireland trained in 2016, infamously hearing gunshots close to the training pitch, which was in bad condition.
Jason ‘Dutchy’ Holland swings by to say hello to the familiar Irish faces after Robertson departs, informing us that he’s heading to Ireland for another visit when the All Blacks’ tour of Scotland, England, and Wales is done.
He’ll be leaving the All Blacks set-up for good at that point, but he says there is no grand plan for what comes next in his coaching career. Holland has always said he’d enjoy the chance to go back to Ireland as a coach at some stage.
He and the other New Zealand coaches don’t seem to be buying the chat about Ireland being rusty for this game. Robertson underlines that many of these players were involved in the Lions Tests relatively recently, while he mentions Ireland’s “cohesion” more than once. He even mistakenly refers to Ireland as “the Lions” at one stage.
With captain Caelan Doris back from injury and Ireland declaring everyone else fit and available, the Kiwis are expecting a massive challenge.
After the articles have been written and the videos have been recorded, it’s time for another local delicacy.
Where better to sample the Italian beef sandwich than Mr Beef, the old-school spot that inspired The Bear, an award-winning show starring Jeremy Allen White.
For fans of the show, it feels strange to queue up and order in a shop you know so well from the TV screen.
The ‘elegant dining room’ next door is where the staff in the fictional Bear would eat their ‘family’ meals. It’s where we devour the glorious sandwiches filled with thinly sliced roast beef and peppers. The entire sandwich is dipped into beef juice before serving, so it’s quite the handful, but it lives up to the billing.
Mikey G, one of the gregarious chefs behind the counter, comes in to check on everyone.
“You like my hot peppers?” he roars in his distinctive Chicagoan accent. “Good, good.
“Don’t try them anywhere else but here or they’ll be coming out hot the other end!”
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
All Blacks Chicago Dutchy Ireland Murrays Postcard from Chicago