A bit odd.

Irish athletics legend Sonia O’Sullivan has had a strange pop at rugby in a column for The Irish Times this morning.

O’Sullivan has questioned rugby and its ability to call itself a “global sport”, stating she struggled to find any mention of the Six Nations in the local papers down south in Melbourne Australia.

“You expect there might just be some small report in the Australian papers.” she writes

It’s not like Australia doesn’t consider itself a successful rugby nation, although their team isn’t in a great place at the moment, which may have something to do with it. But if you didn’t actually know about the Six Nations it would easily go unnoticed. After all, Australia have won the Rugby World Cup twice, just one less than the mighty All Blacks.

And yet the Six Nations competition doesn’t register a blip on the radar in Australia. At least not in Melbourne, although maybe it will be different when I’m in Sydney on March 17th when Ireland face England at Twickenham.

When I try to work this out, weigh things up, and look at the numbers and statistics, it does ask the question: is rugby a truly global sport? There isn’t actually much to back that up, and yet sometimes it pretends to be.”

O’Sullivan goes on to knock the Six Nations, stating “at the end of the day it’s a championship of just six teams.” She also knocks the Rugby World Cup as a tournament with just 20 teams, “and only a few of those will be considered contenders.”

Have a read of her piece in full here.