Doug Howlett Gaelic football 25 August 2009
September 25, 2009
HALF a world away from New Zealand, he still can’t cheer for a team in green and gold. All Black legend Doug Howlett had many a Bledisloe Cup clash with the Wallabies: he knows a rivalry when he sees one.
Hence the New Zealander’s enjoyment of Cork’s Munster semi-final win over Kerry. Based in Cork while he plays for Munster, Howlett quickly appreciated the hold GAA exerted in his new home.
“The first thing that struck me when I came out of Cork Airport when I arrived was the big statue of Christy Ring — that emphasised for me just how big the GAA sports are here.
“Cork being my local town while I’m with Munster, I decided to follow the local teams in hurling and football. And with the Munster squad everybody’s got their own team, so it’s obviously more fun when you’ve got your own team and your own opinions. And I’m aligned with Cork.”
His commitment means just one thing for his teammates: ammunition.
“Yeah, there’s a lot of banter about everyone’s GAA team. Denis Leamy is a big Tipperary fan while you’ve got plenty of guys from Limerick cheering on their sides.
“As a sportsman you appreciate what these guys bring to their sports — the footballers’ kicking skills and fitness levels, obviously. I just enjoy being part of the crowd.”
Given the number of high-pressure games Howlett has played over the years at all levels, being just another spectator must be a welcome change.
“Exactly. That’s what I really enjoy — somebody else is putting on the show, not Munster, and it’s the other side of sport. I can sit back and enjoy the occasion and relax with a cup of tea — and have an opinion on the game.
“I got to the Kerry game down in Páirc Uí Chaoimh — I’d heard of the history between the teams, and the lads with Munster said it was definitely a game worth going to, and I really enjoyed it. I met a few of the Kerry lads as well, and they’re a good bunch. But I can’t support two teams.
“I’d seen the drawn game, and that really added to it, that there was so much at stake. The replay was a great game, as they all are at this stage coming into the semi-finals.”
As has been pointed out many times in the past by others, Howlett was struck by how suitable many GAA players would be for rugby.
“Of course — coming from a country which has rugby as its major sport, and where athletes are pushed into rugby, I can see that here it’s much more diverse, and you have three or four different sports athletes can choose from.
“Looking at GAA athletes, they’re well suited to rugby, it’d be interesting to see them with a rugby ball and how they’d do.”
The star winger has his favourites on the Cork side, but rules out taking up hurling any time soon.
“I like Graham Canty a lot, he’s a real workhorse that leads from the front and doesn’t slow down for the entire game, he’s one player I enjoy watching.
“If I were playing Gaelic football myself … I don’t know, I think I’d be able to get on the ball, but then it’d be a question of what to do with it after that! I’d see myself up front, or maybe midfield — though I mightn’t have the height for midfield.
“Hurling? I don’t think so — hurleys are often brought out at Munster training and I’m well put in my place by the likes of Denis (Leamy) and Tomás O’Leary.”
Howlett hasn’t lost focus when it comes to the day job, given it’s getting to a stage in the year when thoughts are turning to rugby — at all levels.
“We’re back with Munster and ready to go, a lot of the pre-season work is done, and we’ll be ready for the new season.
“There’s a pretty good start to the season today actually in Highfield, with the Meteor Munster Sevens tournament. That’ll be a good day out for rugby fans.”
And tomorrow? Is the Kiwi Cork fan going Upper Hogan or Lower Cusack?
“I don’t have a ticket for tomorrow actually,” he says. “I’m a bit cheeky, I’m hoping to wait for the final.”
Waiting for the final? Sure you’re not a Kerry supporter?
Examiner Sports Column September 26 2008
October 2, 2008
Footnotes to a
season’s history
(DAVID Foster Wallace died last week; the American novelist was known for his enthusiasm for tennis, use of footnotes while writing and philosophical musings on infinity. We thought we’d pay tribute to one of those enthusiasms today. And it’s
neither tennis nor infinity.)
Kerry’s defeat at the hands of
Tyrone last Sunday has opened up the debate* about the team of the decade, if that’s a discussion you care to join.
It might be more interesting to talk** about the state of Gaelic football in the wake of last Sunday. It was end-to-end stuff in Croke Park, with some fine individual scores, but there was also plenty of wayward kicking and poor option-taking on show^^.
That said, it was a vast improvement in terms of entertainment¹ on a
couple of other games this season, with most people now anxious to have the hour and a half they devoted to Kildare-Fermanagh, for instance, returned to them forthwith². This isn’t meant, by the way, to be another
version of the hurling is better than football debate, either“. Just a statement of fact.
Although . . . at least the best of the country’s hurlers aren’t decamping to another continent to parade in front of representatives of another sport who are utterly uninterested in the welfare of Gaelic football.
But that’s another story. Tune in next week.†
FOOTNOTES:
*Debate might be a strong word. Call it a case of clinging to straws if you’re from Kerry, and a matter of preening your feathers if from Tyrone. As for the rest of the GAA world, does the term ‘team of the decade’ register on anyone’s radar as even the most tenuously worthwhile title?
And hold your nose if you do. There is a willingness to make this
into a ‘well, my team’s less cynical than yours’ kind of argument, in which certain players are brought forth as examples of clean living and candidates for sainthood which are at odds with their usual demeanour . . .
** . . . bringing us nicely to Mr Aidan O’Mahony. Not content with establishing self as the Tom Daley, if not actually the Greg Louganis, of the GAA, the sometimes less than perpendicular centre-back told crowds at the Kerry homecoming that Cork wouldn’t win the All-Ireland while he and Tom
O’Sullivan were on the Kerry team.
Son, when you’re in a hole, the first lesson is to stop digging . . .
Something that’s worth mentioning and of itself. The time has long gone when football teams went up and down the field; most senior intercounty sides now take their cue from Ray Wilkins and his memorable crab-like passing. Though the uninformed call this a patient build-up, this is precisely why they are, in fact, called the uninformed . . .
^^Truly one of the great expressions when it comes to sport. It’s as if each player had a sheet of paper in his hand as he bore down on goal (OPTIONS: A. Kick ball over bar. B. Kick ball wide. C. Drop ball. Tick as appropriate). And that the funereal silence of the exam hall pervaded. And there wasn’t half-a-ton of snorting
opponent hurtling after you, etc, etc.
¹Yes, we are all quite aware that if it’s entertainment you want you should go to the circus. Or buy the Season Five DVD box set of The Wire. But still.
²That was truly tragic, if you recall. Don’t feel too bad if you don’t, either, because the mind has a habit of blocking out trauma that horrific.
“ Funny, though, how those flying the flag for the big ball seem to view anyone with a partiality for hurling as somehow representing the views of hurling aficionados everywhere.
Kudos to the man who texted this column after the hurling final to say — with a near-audible sigh — that it was up to the football to rescue the GAA season.
Fair enough. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day, no?
The best laugh about the Compromise-Rules-Greco-Roman-WWF game is the continually-touted line that the players want it.
Would you think so? Really? Given it involves a free trip to Australia, wouldn’t it be a little surprising if they didn’t?
†I’ll be here. Even if some of our footballers aren’t.
Contact: michael.moynihan@examiner.ie
Irish Examiner Column, August 1 2008
August 1, 2008
Michael Moynihan
Cracking the whip on GAA’s disciplinary obsession
FOR THOSE with an eye for unfortunate double entendres in sport, the GAA obsession with discipline must be a godsend.
Discipline, discipline, discipline. There’s been so much talk about this for the last few weeks, it’s like listening to Dr Montague in Mel Brooks’ High Anxiety shouting “Too much bondage, not enough discipline,” on a permanent loop.
It’s the opposite problem in the GAA: far too much discipline
(the bondage I leave to your
imagination).
The shuddering halt — if such it is — to the Paul Galvin story
yesterday leads to the unavoidable conclusion that application of the rules within the GAA is as
haphazard as it ever was.
Galvin is unlikely to pursue any further appeals, and it’s easy to see why.
The toll taken on an individual by that kind of media focus for the last few weeks can only be guessed at.
That focus only occurred because of Galvin’s actions in the game against Clare, of course, which is why it’s necessary to differentiate between two separate issues.
One is the ham-fisted application of a sanction and the huge pressure that placed on a person who no doubt felt unfairly isolated.
Last year the ‘Semplegate’ issue rumbled on and on until the night before Cork were scheduled to take on Waterford in the Munster
hurling championship.
The actual incident took place on May 27, and that next round was on June 17.
Paul Galvin’s sending off took place on June 15 against Clare; the day before yesterday, July 30, he was finally ruled out of action for three months, four days before Kerry’s first outing in the qualifiers.
But at least there were several Cork and Clare players in that
situation. Galvin has been on his own.
In addition, last year we were told that the GAA had taken cognisance of the delay in dealing with the Cork situation, and that such delays would not occur again.
Some chance. (Incidentally,
nobody seems willing to talk about the Semplegate sequel we had last Sunday in Thurles, when a
Wexford player and Waterford
player clashed before coming out.
You’d be inclined to hope that that was because of an outbreak of common sense, as nothing really happened.
Pity we didn’t have a bit more common sense when it happened the last time, eh?).
The other issue, however, is the fact that the Galvin saga happened because the player was sent off in the first place.
We’re not about to rehash all the arguments about what happened that day in Fitzgerald Stadium, nor are we going to get into another wearying go-around on the
character of the Kerry captain.
But there has been a gradual blurring of the issues, suggesting that as it’s taken so long to arrive at any kind of determination in this case, then it’s only fair to the man to halve his sentence anyway from six months to three months.
The upshot of the last few weeks is that the de facto disciplinary sanction for hitting the notebook out of a referee’s hands and roaring into his and his linesman’s face is now three months. Does that sound right?
You may have noticed, by the way, that 50,000 was generated in legal costs in three cases which went to the DRA recently.
Those figures are paid by the county boards in question, by the way, but surely the GAA as a
corporate entity could pay some parliamentary draftsmen, barristers and solicitors the going rate to sit in a room for a couple of days to hammer out a real, robust GAA constitution — without the
hilarious procedural gaps and holes being found nowadays?
If it’s the expense the GAA is worrying about, set that against the damage to the organisation’s
reputation and see which is more cost-effective.
If discipline can be sorted, all that would be left to deal with is bondage. Though that might just be us.
contact:
michael.moynihan@examiner.ie
Ger Power interview, July 5 2008
July 6, 2008
Munster final offer is just the ticket
THREE cheers for the Munster Council.
Well, we give out about administration and administrators often enough, so credit where it’s due.
Whoever came up with the idea of giving out two tickets for the price of one for Sunday’s Munster football final deserves a promotion, or a car pass, or extra chocolate Swiss roll at half-time or some other form of recognition.
The easiest thing in the world would have been to hold the hands over the ears and cross the fingers — not at the same time, obviously — and hope that people would rediscover some kind of obligation to travel. Instead they preempted the problem. Nobody expects the record capacity of Páirc Uí Chaoimh to come under threat on Sunday, but what’s the betting that on Monday people will be saying “Imagine if there hadn’t been a two-for-one deal?”
That isn’t the end of the kudos for the Munster Council, by the way: lately they’ve introduced a measure to facilitate teams and media by bringing managers and selected players to a press room for interviews after a game.
That probably doesn’t mean an awful lot to most of our readers this morning, but if you have never had the dubious pleasure of stepping over the sprawled gear-bags and empty water bottles in an inter-county dressing room to ask a naked corner-forward reeking of Lynx Snake-peel Shower Gel how he in fact managed to score that last point … well, you’re not missing a whole lot. The press are happy because they have a few quotes, the players are happy because it’s all over and done with in a few minutes.
A little bit of structure which helps everyone out, and nobody is remotely nostalgic for the whiff of adidas Team Force deodorant.
ANYWAY. Back to the crowds. In Leinster there’s a crowd problem of a different order, and it’s not just a matter of smart comments about offering four tickets for the price of one for the Leinster hurling final this weekend (Though given the crowd we’re likely to see this weekend, the argument for a toss of venue between Kilkenny and Wexford is pretty strong).
Last Sunday we had the unedifying sight of yet another Dublin game being held up to accommodate latecomers, a situation which left “beyond a joke” in the rear view mirror many moons ago.
The day can’t be far away when dummy throw-in times are given out to entice spectators into Croke Park within some kind of ass’s roar of a workable starting point. That can only happen with the full collusion of the Garda authorities, stadium management and broadcasting partners, of course, but what about the teams involved?
Right now every team which comes into Croke Park to take on Dublin in championship action knows there’s a good to fair chance that that game won’t be starting on time. That kind of uncertainty impacts hugely on team preparation, particularly in those crucial few minutes before the players take the field.
Don’t underestimate the significance of those few minutes: former Cork hurling manager Donal O’Grady is on record as saying that his players’ preparation was seriously put out when they were held back in the tunnel under the Hogan Stand by stewards before the 2003 final.
For teams trying to make the big breakthrough, getting to the right emotional pitch in the dressing room is hard enough — lowering the temperature when you’re informed that the crowd haven’t made it out of the Cat and Cage is a complication that isn’t needed.
None of that is Paul Caffrey’s fault, nor that of his players or county board. They can’t get their supporters in any quicker than anyone else.
Maybe something should be offered to those supporters. If a two-for-one deal works in Munster, a money-back offer if you’re a Dublin fan who can make it to Croke Park on time might work.
You’d be rewarding Dubliners for doing what people from Beara and Achill and Letterkenny do without a problem every summer, of course. But what’s the alternative?
Contact: michael.moynihan@examiner.ie
Irish Examiner Sports column, June 20
June 20, 2008
12-03-2004
Colm O’Connor
Case for defence rings
hollow
IT’S hardly surprising Paul Galvin got the book thrown at him this week. After all,
throwing the book was what got him into trouble in the first place.
First things first: mentioning Galvin’s day job as a teacher in
connection with last Sunday is grossly unfair. Players with other professions aren’t held to a higher standard when they line out for their counties.
Neither are pundits. Nobody asks Joe Brolly if it’s appropriate for a
barrister to offer personalised criticism of GAA players.
Unfortunately, therefore, it was a tactical error or poor advice, or both, that led to Galvin mentioning the fact that he trains the school team on RTÉ. He’d have ben far better off pointing out — rightly — that his nine to five job has no bearing at half-three on a Sunday.
Then again, some of the other defences offered on his behalf this week are worse. Take the ‘reputation preceding him defence’, for example — Galvin has a bad name, ergo he suffers more at the hands of referees and opponents than other players.
Unfortunately, the suggestion that Galvin is more sinned against than sinning doesn’t hold up. In almost 30 inter-county championship games for Kerry he has been sent off only twice, and that includes last Sunday against Clare, which hardly denotes a player whose photograph rests on referees’ dartboards.
As for opponents, Galvin himself has apologised since the game and
offered frustration as the cause of his actions. But he also knows stepping onto the field of play what kind of
attention he’s likely to receive.
Earlier this year in an interview he referred to an incident in a game against Limerick some years ago in which opponents got involved with him, seeking a reaction; as that realisation dawned, in words which have a grim ring to them today, Galvin said: “I really learned a lesson that day.”
The reputation argument is closely related to the ‘unfair to miss a season’ defence. Every player wants to play; should the rules be set aside to make them all happy?
The fact that Galvin spent six months preparing for last Sunday’s game could easily pop up in the prosecution brief — having invested that much in getting himself right, should he not have prepared himself mentally for the overwhelming likelihood that an opponent was likely to try to frustrate him?
Reinforcing the point made above, John Kiely, the Waterford manager, put the case eloquently for opposing coaches when he told this newspaper: “If you are in charge of any team playing Kerry you will always try and agitate a player like Paul Galvin. That is sad but true.”
That last defence is linked to the old ‘without that edge he’d be half the player’ chestnut, an eye-rollingly misguided sports myth.
Having the discipline to operate within the rules is a prerequisite in any sport. The most violent sporting confrontations occur in the boxing ring, where the rules must be followed. Why should field games be any different?
Managers down the years have always stressed the importance of having all their players on the field of play; revisit Galvin’s early-season interview and there’s another admission — the realisation that he could cost Kerry games through indiscipline — which reads now like a glow-in-the-dark hostage to fortune.
The only vaguely workable defence offered so far is inconsistency in punishment (though we must have been home from school the day someone decided the GAA was a model of jurisprudence), with Brendan Devenney’s six months for pushing a referee in 2004 the main witness.
Inconsistency advocates are right, but not in the way they think: Devenney should have been punished more severely for that indiscretion. Six months was a light sentence.
Paul Galvin’s suspension is harsh, but it’s justified. Nobody knows that better than he does.
“I have done things that have got me in trouble,” he said earlier this year. “I’ve got away with things too. I don’t claim to be victimised.”
contact: michael.moynihan@examiner.ie
Pat Spillane interview, May 2008
May 28, 2008
Shooting from
the lip
Obesity, ill discipline and the state of Kerry football. Just the headline acts in a two-hour chat with Pat Spillane. Michael Moynihan
did the listening
AS interview subjects go, Pat Spillane isn’t a challenge. Some candidates you have to pry and poke, some you have to cajole, but not the former Kerry star. A
casual opener about the league final leads ultimately to modern full-back play, and there aren’t too many degrees of separation.
“I thought the league final was a reality check for Kerry,” says Spillane. “I didn’t expect them to get to a league final, but once you get there you don’t turn your back on it. But they were so unfit — they looked six or seven weeks behind in terms of fitness. And there was an 11-point turnaround in 50 minutes. Kerry teams don’t normally do that.
“That’s taken a slight bit of pressure off them, but it means the foreign training camp is all hard work. I know they’ve a long break to the championship, but I still expected them to be further along.”
Having already offered more opinion than a flock of current intercounty players, Spillane skewers a couple of misconceptions as we continue.
“There have been a couple of myths going around recently in Gaelic football. One was that Tyrone had a conveyor belt of
talent and were so well organised that they’d be at the top forever. The same myth applies to Kerry, that there are so many top class players coming through they’ll be there forever.
“But Tyrone found out when a couple of marquee players aren’t around — Canavan, Dooher, O’Neill — there were no players to take their place. Kerry have had a conveyor belt of a lot of good players coming through, but top-class players who are ready for championship? They’re not as plentiful as we were led to believe. What disguised that for Kerry in the league is that they had the championship defence out — that camouflaged the problems, which was mainly that Kerry don’t have too many top-class championship forwards in reserve.
“The biggest reason Kerry lost to Derry was the absence of Paul Galvin. He performs a role that isn’t glamorous — he’s not going to be highest scorer, or the conductor of the attack, or involved in all the sweeping moves, but he’s the man for second-phase possession, for the breakdown if he was playing rugby. Getting down and dirty and winning breaks, getting a hand in — that’s his job, but Derry won all of those balls in the league final. Every team needs a player like that.
“Kerry don’t have a natural full-back: Marc Ó Sé is the Red Adair of the
defence, he has to put out every fire, and he struggled with Paddy Bradley — though in fairness to him, I’d have Bradley in my top three footballers in the country. Number three, probably.”
Mentioning top full-forwards leads inevitably to the lack of top full-backs. He’s off again.
“The trouble with full-backs is that the stereotypical six-three, John O’Keeffe or Darren Fay-type commanding the square doesn’t exist any more. That’s because the typical game now has half-forwards playing deep or a two-man full-forward line, which means the amount of high ball into the square — apart from Kerry and Donaghy — is negligible. It’s low, fast ball, so you need a mobile full-back.”
Marc Ó Sé rather than Darragh Ó Sé? “Exactly. Your mobile guy at 5-10 is more valuable than a 6-4 guy who’s relatively immobile, the way the game is played nowadays.
“Tactics have come into Gaelic football compared to years ago — I’ve said to Tony Hanahoe he must have been the only man to win an All Star by running to the sideline! But he was probably the first, trying to take Tim Kennelly out of the centre.
“Against Derry, Kerry were tactically naïve – they played Eoin Brosnan as a sweeper and brought the half-forward line back. But you can’t defend a lead in Gaelic football — we know well, we lost the five-in-a-row because of it. You’re inviting the opposition on to you, and that can work sometimes against a running team, you can stop them 40 yards from goal, but if the opposition can kick the ball over the bar from 40, 50 yards, then you’re in trouble. That’s what Derry did in the league final, they were able to kick long-range points.”
As a man who kicked his fair share of long-range points, it’s no surprise to hear him bemoan the decline of kicking as a skill.
“We hear ‘it’s all ballwork’ at intercounty training sessions, and teams have gone away from laps and hill-running, but if you go to one of those sessions you’ll see that drills from other sports, usually basketball, are being used. That means handpassing. You can have on
average 150 hand-passes per game as a
result, because that’s how the teams are being trained.
“That’s why the Australians found us out in the Compromise Rules. We’re just athletes who pass the ball, and the one strong point was our long, accurate kicking; when we didn’t do that we came up against stronger, fitter athletes who beat us.
“Players don’t know how to tackle in Gaelic football. I remember when Donal O’Grady coached Cork he went back to holding hurleys, hooking and blocking. The basics. Our players don’t get good coaching. If a golfer misses a putt he goes to the green and practices for two hours; if Ronan O’Gara misses a kick he’ll take kicks for a couple of hours at training. If a Gaelic football team loses a game by kicking 14 wides, they’ll do laps of the field at their next training session.
“So much is programmed in training now that when a game loosens up — and becomes unprogrammed — players can’t handle it.”
Spillane wouldn’t be averse to reducing the number of players per side, and opening up space on the field (“It’s a point, bringing it down to 14 or 13), but sports psychologists and statisticians leave him cold.
“I don’t go overboard with psychologists and statisticians. If you need them to get the 1% to get over the line, fine, but you’ll notice that when a team wins an All-Ireland the psychologist is lauded. But the team they beat in the final probably had a psychologist as well. What about him? A great manager doesn’t need to be told the stats. He’ll recognise that midfield isn’t being won, or that a corner-back is in trouble. My favourite story about statisticians is the time three of them were out shooting. A duck flew up and one shot and missed him by three feet on the left. Another statistician shot and missed by three feet on the right. ‘I’m not going to shoot at all,” said the third, “Statistically speaking that duck is dead’.”
BROADENING the debate broadens the focus. Parnellgate is still fresh in the memory, and Spillane takes the specific incident to illustrate a wider truth about the GAA.
“Too many of the Dubs play with a scowl on the face, and that in-your-face aggression comes from the top down, from management. The incident involving Dublin and Meath was fairly low on the Richter scale, but it was the week after Nickey Brennan made a big statement about discipline. If you had sense you’d know not to make trouble, because the next teams that stepped out of line were going to get punished . . .
“The shortest fully constructed sentence in English is ‘I’m sorry’. But they’re the most difficult words for GAA people to produce. The two managers shouldn’t have been joking about Arsene Wenger and ‘I didn’t see it’, they should have apologised, the two county boards the same –— but no.
“In fairness, you wouldn’t get that in the championship. But take the Cork-Clare thing last year, it was trivial, and the suspensions were completely over the top. When you see one of the greatest sportsmen in the GAA, Sean Óg Ó hAilpin, getting a massive suspension, you know something is wrong with the system. Sleeveenism is alive and well in the GAA, and unfortunately more so at official level than player level. The rulebook needs to be rewritten, and to be made simpler.
“But that comes back to a wider issue in Irish society. There’s no respect for elders, for teachers, for gardaí — in the GAA there’s no respect for referees, and there’s no excuse for the abuse they get from players, managers and supporters.”
On those wider issues Spillane is downbeat, and with good reason.
“I see a society I don’t like now. It’s a disaster. I’m a PE teacher and 30% of my first years have never played sport — and that’s in rural west Cork. They’ve come through primary systems where they’ve never had sports facilities, and now they’re playing their Wii, Xbox, etc. By the time they get to 16 they’ve given up on those for drugs, drink and anti-social behaviour.
“We’re heading into a disaster zone. We have a society which is overweight, unfit and uninterested in sport, and now the Celtic Tiger is coming to an end what have we been left with? The GAA has been part of that. It’s had a magnificent run, but the golden era is over for the GAA. We’re not dealing with the major problems. Our flagship competitions aren’t as good as we want them to be. Football is mediocre, while hurling is confined to six or seven teams.”
It’s not all complaints. Spillane appeals for GAA players to be used properly in marketing (“A transition year class would come up with better marketing for the GAA”), for county panels to get a slice of the gate to spend as they want, and for a career structure to appeal to young GAA players, but the frustration is still close to the surface.
“Urban-focused legislation is ruining rural Ireland and country GAA clubs are struggling, while at the same time the Association hasn’t dealt with urbanisation. The big towns and cities aren’t being catered for. We had a gravy train and milked it to the last, but I don’t think the GAA is spending its money the right way — on coaching in primary schools. In 30 years as a post-primary teacher I’ve never been offered any coaching help, but if I rang the IRFU tomorrow I’d have a coach at the school the next morning.
“There were less than 16,000 people at the four league finals this year. That’s frightening, and no-one is saying ‘this is serious’. People are saying the championship is coming around, but what’s camouflaged things for the last couple of years is the Dubs. The GAA has been lucky that the media has hyped up the games and done its work for it; the GAA only had to collect the money. But if they don’t get the same exposure for some reason . . .
“The warning bells are ringing, and they’re ringing loudly.”
Who’s listening?
Sports Column, 1 February 2008
March 25, 2008
Brothers
in the struggle (almost)
THERE HAS been some discussion as to why other counties are not coming out in solidarity with Cork’s striking hurlers and footballers. Well, during the week we
established the following…
Dublin were going to come out on strike but they arrived onto the picket line in dribs and drabs past the appointed time and their delay meant the protest never really got off the ground.
Meath were going to strike but when they heard Dublin were going on strike they decided not to, out of badness.
Antrim were going to strike but nobody understands the situation in the north if they haven’t been there, you know?
Armagh were going to strike but felt that wouldn’t be taking the whole thing seriously enough so they went back training.
Donegal were going to strike but decided not to because they never succeed in anything if Brian McEniff isn’t involved so they went back.
Down were going to strike but decided not to because a perfect
industrial relations record in certain disputes with Kerry would be
jeopardised.
Derry were going to strike but felt everyone would say it was a one-man operation based on Paddy Bradley.
Carlow were going to strike but the seductive mistress that is potential victory in an O’Byrne Cup semi-final drained their resolve.
Longford were going to strike but couldn’t fit all the letters on the placard; Louth were going to strike but you know, it’s over 50 years since the last time…
Cavan were going to strike but felt everyone would think they were playing up to the stingy stereotype so they went back.
Clare were going to strike but somebody forgot to bring the
placards to the hill in Crusheen so Mike Mac said they might as well run up and down the slope for an hour anyway.
Kildare were going to strike but felt white would clash with the placards; Wicklow were going to strike but decided that Mick O’Dwyer’s Kerry had never been on strike so they went back; and Laois were going to go on strike but felt they’d succeeded with Micko
without going on strike so they, too, went back.
Galway were going to strike but felt separate protests for hurling
and football were unworkable; Mayo were going to go on
strike but heartbreakingly they were pipped at the post when their
placards never turned up at the last minute. Leitrim were going to go on strike but felt their picket line would be too small to be noticed.
Westmeath were going to strike but decided not to out of respect to Joe Dolan; Wexford were going to strike but felt one good performance was all they’d get out of it.
Limerick were going to strike but decided to head off and play a bit of rugby with Shannon while they were out of action.
Waterford were going to strike but felt people liked their team so much they’d be better off going back. Tipperary were going to strike but decided not to because they felt they had nothing to prove: the finest.
Fermanagh were going to strike but half the county is water and half is Protestant, so where would they get pickets? Monaghan were going to strike but they couldn’t find a Patrick Kavanagh poem about strikes so they went back.
Offaly were going to go on strike but got annoyed with everyone
saying they’d be too busy partying to picket properly that they went back to prove the naysayers wrong.
Roscommon were going to go on strike but felt their promising minor pickets were too inexperienced, so they went back; Sligo were going to go on strike but hey, when you’re Connacht champs…
Tyrone were going to go on strike but felt that swarming in numbers all over the picket line would be counterproductive.
And Kerry were going to go on strike but felt that there were so many of them in Cork as it was that it was like they were on strike
anyway.
Kilkenny were going to go on strike but decided to have an oul’ puck-around around while they were on the picket lines, y’know?
Contact:
michael.moynihan@examiner.ie
