The Sporting Year: Review and Preview

Hurling is a game in crisis. The League doesn’t matter to anyone, and the Championship has so very few meaningful games. Even worse, not only is hurling not growing in the non-traditional (football) counties but the ancient game is in clear and visible decline in counties that are not only considered hurling powers, but that have won or contested All-Ireland finals in the past fifteen years. None of this is good.

And despite this litany of disaster, hurling still provided the greatest sporting moment of the year when Tipperary overcame Kilkenny in a game done scant justice by such weak adjectives as epic, magisterial, unforgettable, monumental. The 2010 hurling final showcased everything that is great about hurling, right down to the post-match singing of the Galtee Mountain Boy, singing that showed exactly what makes the GAA great – the perfect synergy of people, place and culture.

What this means for hurling in 2011 and beyond your correspondent cannot say, not being a hurling man, other than to remark that if this is ever lost, there will be a hole in the country’s soul that can never be filled.

The football final was not as good, but the football Championship was outstanding. The Championship started as an exclusive club where twenty-nine teams were warm-up acts for a Big Three, but Down reminded everybody with eyes to see that the great prize is there to be won by those who dare, rather than ceded by those who dare not. Small consolation to them as they lost their first ever football final, but a beacon to the rest of the country.

We will hear a lot in the first six months of next year about how that beacon shines for Dublin, something that annoys the country outside the pale more than somewhat, and does the least service of all to Dublin and Dublin GAA. This isn’t because of hype – talk is cheap, after all – but because of a fundamental misunderstanding of the game.

If Dublin are to survive using their new system, they will revolutionise Gaelic football with their three man forward line and twelve backs. An Spailpín Fánach doesn’t believe this tactic will work, but it is certainly going to be one of the stories of the year. Until the system is found out.

2011 bubbles with anticipation. Can Mickey Harte build a Tyrone 2.0 as the new generations comes through and his great servants retire one by one? Can Cork push on or was this the last hurrah for the weight of their panel? Can Sligo recover from their shattering Connacht Final loss? Have Roscommon finally turned a corner after a decade of misery? How much longer can Padraic Joyce carry Galway?

Every country has its narrative. James Horan’s first Mayo team will line out against Leitrim in Ballinamore on January 9th. An Spailpín hopes to be there. The road goes ever on.

In rugby, after reports of their demise were greatly exaggerated some years ago, the Golden Generation are finally gathered in the Last Chance Saloon. Declan Kidney’s mission for 2011 is to nurse them to the World Cup in October, and a last hurrah in a World Cup quarter-final. To get to a semi-final, something Ireland have never done, would be an outstanding achievement, and a fitting finale to several careers.

And possibly the last hurrah for quite some years; despite what the IRFU-istas write and would have you believe in the papers, the future is not bright. Scotland is on the rise, the deep and unaddressed flaw in the system that sees players not being developed because it makes better short-term sense to buy foreign props or stand-off halves, and the sheer weight of English and French money make the future challenging in the extreme for Irish rugby. It was fun while it lasted.

The World Cup was terrible for anyone outside of Spain. It would have been impossible to believe twenty years ago, but the World Cup itself may be in danger. Newsweek’s respected political columnist Jonathan Alter tweeted earlier this year that Qatar paid €7,500,000 per vote to stage the World Cup in 2022. It’s the only way the thing can be understood. The super clubs are on the rise and international soccer is on the decline. This is the future.

And finally – Irish sports lost their voice this year when Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh announced his retirement. His like will not be seen again, but there is hope for the future. It’s not likely, but maybe now wouldn’t be a bad time to get the ball rolling.

RTÉ Radio ought to try a little lateral thinking and appoint Seán Bán Breathnach of Raidió na Gaeltachta as their chief Gaelic Games commentator. Hector Ó hEoghagáin tweeted about this before Christmas, and it’s the only way. SBB is an outstanding commentator and, while English is his second language, Seán Bán is considerably more fluent and passionate in English than some of the current RTÉ men with microphones. The campaign begins here.

Cork Ascend into Glory

Cork 0-16
Down 0-15

After so many years of bitter disappointment, Cork ascended into glory when they won their seventh All-Ireland football title with a win over gallant Down in a wet Croke Park yesterday.

Down travelled under the weight of expectation drawn from the five teams before them who had never lost an All-Ireland final. Cork’s weight of expectation was even higher; had they fallen on Sunday, how could this generation have ever risen again?

For the first half-hour of the 2010 All-Ireland final it looked as though the day could only end in more rebel tears. Erratic shooting into the Hill saw Cork squander their early advantage in possession, while the Down forwards foraged for scraps and made the most of whatever came their way.

And then, the five minutes that changed the game as Cork laced over three quick points before the whistle to cut Down’s lead to three by half-time, 0-8 to 0-5. After struggling so hard to score in the first half it was like had Cork clicked into that higher gear that they’ve found so hard to find since losing to Kerry last year.

For Down, the writing was appearing on the wall, and it didn’t spell good news. They hadn’t made the most of their dominance, and Cork looked like they had found their form after a year’s search from Malin Head all the way back to their own Bantry Bay.

In the second half, the sands finally trickled out for Down. Martin Clarke, Down’s master of puppets, became less and less influential as the game wore on, shepherded by Cork’s imperious and talismanic Noel O’Leary.

The program tells us that O’Leary is a tree surgeon by profession – An Spailpín likes to think that O’Leary eschews the chainsaw to pull oak and cedar up by the roots with his bare, and think nothing of it. Yesterday, O’Leary took his instruction from the Book of Ruth, deciding that wither Martin Clarke goeth, Noel O’Leary doth also go.

But O’Leary was just one part, if a very important part, of what was the ultimate team triumph. This was the fundamental difference in the teams – Down could not live with Cork in terms of depth of talent. Look at the players who rose from the Cork bench – Graham Canty. Nicolas Murphy. Derek Kavanagh. Veterans of many campaigns, who were not going to let another summer end in disappointment.

It is to Down’s eternal credit that they still hung on as the waves of Cork pressure battered them, and a case could be made that Down were unlucky not to snatch a draw at the death. But for Cork to be denied would have been unjust and they well deserve their seventh All-Ireland football title.

FOCAL SCOIR: Croke Park is really going to have to look at its interval entertainment. Drumming is not music. Thirty seconds is bearable, in its context; Twenty minutes is criminal.

A Refusal to Mourne - Why Is Everyone So Down on Down?

An Spailpín Fánach is mystified at Down’s being written off prior to their All-Ireland semi-final this Sunday against Kildare. The great Kevin Egan, the GAA bettor’s greatest friend, advises a hearty punt on Kildare not just to win but to cover the -1 margin, bullishly adding that this is “the strongest recommendation this column has made for some time.”

Darragh Ó Sé couldn’t see Down winning no-how, no-way in yesterday’s Irish Times: “I’ve looked at it over and over and can’t see how Down can win. I see Kildare having a more comfortable win than Cork’s.”

Put aside, for the moment, the notion that Cork had an easy win last Sunday, and consider the rest of the statement. Darragh’s looked at it over and over and he still can’t see Down winning. At all. It’s tough but not impossible to see Tipp breaking Kilkenny’s hearts in the hurling without having to look at it over and over – how can Kildare have a better chance against Down than Kilkenny against Tipp? It doesn’t add up.

Of the three teams left in the competition, Down are a cracking, cracking price at 9/2 across the board to win their sixth title and pass Cavan as Ulster’s most successful team. Cork are already in the final but they are a team that is only just hanging together while Kildare’s signature win was against a team that was too chicken to play Louth. Louth!

Down, by contrast, are only the bunch of bums and layabouts that handed out a considerable scutching to the All-Ireland Champions. There is speculation that Kerry were on their last legs, and Down beat them just by virtue of their being the team that turned up on the day.

If Kerry were playing Kildare tomorrow, would Kerry be an 11/8 underdog? The science of handicapping has more twists than simple substitutions, of course, but the broad stroke remains true – Down are not being given credit for beating Kerry. As they’re the only team to beat Kerry in a quarter-final since the introduction of the damnable Qualifiers ten years ago, they should be given more credit for that achievement than they are.

Ambrose Rodgers is a huge lose for Down of course, but does a missing Dermot Earley not balance things out?

People are talking about Kildare’s scoring threat. Down scored some pretty nice points against Kerry, and machine-gunned poor Sligo off the pitch. They’ll be able to keep up with the scores. Down’s defence is a risk but, as they demonstrated against Kerry, denying ball to the opposition can take the bad look off any defence. Kildare start slowly while Down strike quickly and ruthlessly. How much of a lead can Kildare spot Down without going past their elastic limit? All these are serious points of consideration.

And finally, there is the question of tradition. Tradition counts. The history of Down in the 90s and the 60s was to come from nowhere and scorch all before them. Down have had some bad years but talent has been bubbling under – their Under-21s gave Mayo an absolute lesson in Longford a few years ago, Martin Clarke is home from Australia, Benny Coulter has to be singing it’s now or never in the showers – there’s a lot coming together for them.

Whoever wins on Sunday need have no fear of Cork either. Cork were extremely lucky to get past Dublin last Sunday. The worries by the banks of the Lee that Conor Counihan doesn’t know his best fifteen should now be exacerbated by the appearance of him now not being able to tell whether or not a player is even fit to play.

Not only that, but Cork clearly hadn’t the first notion how to counteract Dublin’s infamous method and were lost lambs with fifteen minutes to go until, for reasons best known to himself, Ross O’Connell put Cork right back in the game.

Cork may well win the All-Ireland and if they do, they’ll deserve it of course. All-Irelands aren’t easily won. But nobody is running in fear of Cork the way they were last year until Kerry beat them in the All-Ireland. Cork have never come back from the boxing they took in the All-Ireland last year and, unless they have saved seventy minutes from somewhere, that will leave them vulnerable to whoever wins the semi-final on Sunday. An Spailpín’s dollar sees Sam making his way back to Down. Down, down, deeper and down. Get down, deeper and down. Down, down, deeper and down...

Addressing Inequality in the Gaelic Football Championship

An Spailpín Fánach can exclusively reveal that the remarkable events of all the Provincial Champions losing in the quarter-finals resulted in an extraordinary meeting of a select comma-tee deep underground in Croke Park on Sunday night.

The comma-tee was formed when a man went into fits in the premium level after Dublin beat Tyrone, wondering what would happen if a team refused to accept the Sam McGuire Cup on the basis they hadn’t been beaten at all during the year and wanted to know why they were being singled out and discriminated against.

The Association realised that the Championship could end up like search for the final digit of π at that rate of going. And who needs that, with the nights drawing in and no sign of a rise in the price of houses?

Hence the comma-tee. The minutes of the meeting are as follows.

1. This comma-tee accepts that the root cause of discrimination in the GAA is not the provincial system, but the county system itself. Counties have unequal populations, and often suffer further due to an unfortunate ratio of boys to childs in certain counties.

2. The comma-tee has decided, therefore, that all counties are to be done away with summarily. All players in clubs on the island of Ireland, and her wild geese in London and New York, are to listed, collated and randomly assigned to thirty-two newly created teams of equal size.

3. The teams will be named after sponsors rather than counties in order to level the playing field. This to further promote equality, and has nothing to do with money. At all. We hate the stuff. Root of all evil. (NOTE: Any smartarse in a newspaper who writes any wry/world-weary/why-oh-why/Grab-All-Association thousand word think piece in response to this initiative is to be banned from all games for five bloody years, and that counts double for the International Rules pinting sessions).

4. The new teams then play in a Champions League style round robin rotisserie league, after which four semi-finalists are draw out of a hat because nobody understands what the hell any of that other stuff is.

5. Before each semi-final, each team manager will be shown a picture of John Mullane, a hurl and a kitten. He will be then be told if it’s there’s one peep, sigh or sideways glance out of him about the new system, it’s goodbye kitty. Not even one of those Nordie bollixes would dare. Everybody loves kitties. And is a little frightened of John Mullane.

6. The comma-tee recognises that, even though the counties will have been replaced by Brennan’s Breaded Buffaloes, Galtee Mountain Bucks, Bailey’s Irish Scream, and so on, inequality will still exist on the field of play. Even though the players are randomly selected, the luck of the draw will still mean that some players will better than others are catching footballs, kicking footballs and kicking caught footballs over the bar.

7. The comma-tee therefore recommends that the old determination of the result of a game by adding up “goals” and “points” scored will no longer apply. Instead, at the end of seventy minutes, where graphs of players' work-rates are displayed on the big boards as the players run aimlessly around Croke Park, stopping only to do jumping jacks and push-ups, some scrawny buck with glasses and a white coat will along with a computer to announce the winner.

8. The formula for calculating the winner will be derived by a complex algorithm drawn up by a mathematician so smart he lives in a cave, does sums with chalk held in his toes, and smells like a ferret that’s been fried in chip fat. The comma-tee accepts the weirder you are, the better you are at sums as a fundamental natural law.

9. The comma-tee will appoint a sub-comma-tee to see if we can use an umpire’s white coat for the scrawny buck, and use the money saved for an iPad instead of a regular computer. Mental looking yokes, the iPads.

10. The comma-tee heartily endorses the attitude of the Mayo County Board in having no damned “fan” telling them what they can or can’t do. Any “fans” attempting to so question the comma-tee's recommendations, either through Liveline, Des Cahill or Twitter, will be rounded up and shot.

11. The comma-tee then adjourned to the Auld Triangle at the corner of Dorset and Gardiner for drinks. And are probably there yet.

Falling GAA Attendances - Of Course It's Economic

The All-Ireland quarter-finals on the August Bank Holiday weekend were the shining proof that the qualifier system worked, once. Full houses on two, or maybe even three, days, the city en carnivale as the nation celebrated its Gaelic games.

That was then. Now, the GAA will count itself lucky to get eighty thousand people in total through the turnstiles for all four games. There was an extra-ordinarily ungracious movement in 2006 to have the Tommy Murphy Cup final moved from Croke Park in order to make way for more Dublin fans for the semi-final against Mayo that was on later that day. The GAA would be very grateful to know where exactly those Dublin fans have been this year, that were beating down the gates to that extent four years ago.

Tom Humphries' Locker Room column in the Irish Times last Monday week argued that the fans are not staying away for reasons of economics. Humphries dismisses the argument in a sentence, claiming that “if the elasticity of demand for tickets to sporting events were price-related Gaelic Games would fare well being comparatively cheap and good value entertainment.”

To which An Spailpín cannot but wonder: what sporting events? What events in Ireland compete with the Championship? The only team game comparisons that An Spailpín can think of are rugby, for which you cannot buy a ticket, and domestic soccer, for which you cannot give the tickets away.

Ireland isn’t like the States, where the major sports compete with each other. In team sports in Ireland, there has been the GAA and then there has been the rest. Club rugby’s profile has taken off with the arrival of professionalism – and the redefinition of “club” of course - but whether that’s something that will last is worthy of a post in itself. Perhaps when the leaves start falling.

In the meantime, An Spailpín’s dollar says that the failing attendances are due to economic factors. Economics, as Tim Harford as Steven Levitt have pointed out, is about more than the price on the packet. There is a such a thing as inherent value, and the inherent value of a Championship is lessened by its current formats.

The double header was made much of in the glory years, with a lot of old blather about your day being just backed with Gaelic games goodness. Well, not quite. It’s like those multiple DVD sets you see in HMV. You might want to watch one, maybe two, but never all three. And that’s why they package them – because there’s no way they’ll move the glugger otherwise.

The double header format is like its odious twin from the Tiger years, the two bedroom apartment. A format that allows the seller to maximise profit to the disadvantage of the buyer. Double header formats are value for money for the fan if your team wins the first game and will play the winners of the second. Otherwise, it’s an extra twenty bucks tariff on your ticket price. But back in the Tiger days – what was twenty bucks?

The double header name comes from baseball. But the only reason – the only reason – they play double headers in baseball is because games are lost to rain during the season and it’s only by playing two games on one day later in the summer that they can catch up, as baseball is played daily.

Nobody pretends that a double header is some sort of bargain. It’s a necessary evil to play a 162 game regular season. The double header format for Championship games here is the second bedroom in the apartment – what you don’t need and can’t afford, but what generated some serious cash in boom times.

And the other problem is the back door system itself, of course. After ten years, it’s obvious the back door favours the strong and punishes the weak. The only chance weaker counties had of glory in the old system was shocking a power. Now that’s gone because the power can dust himself off and rise again, making damn sure not to get caught the second time. One of the reasons that attendances are down until now is because it’s only now that they’re playing for keeps. It’s happened year after year, and in both codes.

Tom Humphries sets great store in the Locker Room piece already quoted about what a glorious game Waterford’s win in 2004 Munster hurling final was. All An Spailpín knows of it is this – that the team that lost that 2004 Munster final, Cork, went on to win the All-Ireland. Not every team can win the All-Ireland of course, but did Cork’s winning the All-Ireland then devalue the Munster win for Waterford? Ask yourself which of them was happier that Christmas, and you have your answer.

Enjoy the football at the weekend. For anyone that has any money left after following An Spailpín’s tale of woe this season, two bets. A small tickle on Roscommon against Cork, because that 8/1 price is an insult, and if anyone has a market on sendings-off in the Dublin v Tyrone game, that could be worth a tickle too. It won’t be pretty in those trenches on Saturday evening.

Two Gaelic Football Bets for the Weekend

Tradition is the funny man. The lazy notion that’s been prevalent in some media about the Connacht Championship being strictly an either/or affair between Mayo and Galway down the years is not true.

Roscommon have had a nightmare decade but they have a proud football tradition – not as successful as Mayo or Galway but considerably better than the other three Connacht teams combined. Roscommon have two All-Ireland titles, nineteen Nestor Cups and four All-Ireland runner up appearances, and every man, woman and child in Roscommon are fully aware of that as they fly under the radar to the Connacht Final in Castlebar on Sunday.

Roscommon were never as successful as Cavan in their pomp but Roscommon haven’t fallen as far as Cavan yet, although it looked very bleak for a while. Boxing Sligo’s ears for them would be something that would help remind the new generation of their responsibilities to those that wore the primrose and blue with such staggering pride in the past.

An Spailpín has seen the Rossie support at matches in recent years, their constant hearts breaking as humiliation heaped on humiliation. But still they came back. They never deserted the colours. The desolate stands at Salthill or as expected later today at Headquarters are hard to imagine replicated in the Hyde, and that fierce pride counts.

Counting against Roscommon is the fact that Sligo are the better team this year, any way you slice them. Sligo have better players and, while you can only dance with the girls in the hall, Sligo’s will and resolve will have been tempered by a path to the Final that went through Mayo and two games with Galway.

Historically, Sligo would have wilted in the replay after Galway reeled them back in Salthill, but this is a New Model Sligo. If the Yeats county do win on Sunday they are the unquestionably the greatest Sligo team ever and there’s no reason why they should set a horizon on their ambitions.

The media will set the provincial title as the limit of their ambition but if you look at the road to September and of whom Sligo should be afraid – well, it could be one Hell of a summer for them yet.

But first they must get past Roscommon. Sligo are no price at 2/7 and, while we wouldn’t be surprised if the Ross rose again, we wouldn’t expect it so much as to part with folding green in a recession economy.

However, there is a good bet available for the Connacht Final, and that is that there will be more than one goal scored between the two teams, currently quoted at 4/5 and rising on Betfair.

The Sligo fullback line is dodgy and Roscommon suffer from a lack point-scorers. This suggests that a few scuds into either Donie Shine or Karol Mannion on the edge of the square will be an avenue that Roscommon will be eager to explore.

Equally, the Sligo corner forwards have shown an assassin’s touch so far this summer and the mighty Cake is no longer between the sticks for the Ross. Over 1.5 goals in the Connacht Final is a good bet.

Only a madman would bet on Derry v Kildare or Offaly v Down, as not one of the four of them can be relied upon to play up or down to recent form, which is very much when the only way to make money is to keep it in the póca. Cork will almost certainly slaughter Wexford, but they’re no price at all and that’s no good to us.

However, Armagh are quoted at 13/8 against 6/4 on favourites Dublin at a deserted Croke Park later today and that is one price that An Spailpín cannot get his head around at all. The matchless Kevin Egan believes that Dublin can win pulling up but Dublin appear a team in disarray swirling down the crazy river to your regular correspondent.

Armagh have their problems since the glory days ended but my goodness gracious, 13/8? I am kurious, Oranj, but that’s a hearty bargain that doesn’t come along every day. A bag of groats, then, on the Orchard County this evening before looking to the blessed West tomorrow.

Meath's Unique Opportunity to Make a Truly Regal Gesture

Fate has gifted the Meath County Board a tremendous chance to remind the nation of what the GAA is truly about. If Meath to offer a replay to Louth after the bizarre ending to today’s Leinster final they will make it clear that how you play the game really is more important than winning or losing.

Sport is a funny thing. In the fury of battle we have tropes about games being more important than life or death, but they’re not. They’re just games. They’re important because what we do in play should reflect what we do in real life. The values of our society should be reflected in the values of our games.

Meath can turn today’s refereeing blunder to everybody’s advantage by saying that titles come and go but values are eternal. This is why there’s a tremendous moral obligation on Meath to offer Louth a replay of the Leinster Final. Meath are big enough; another Leinster title won’t effect them one way or the other, and even if they lose they’re still in the All-Ireland Championship.

But by offering a replay Meath will demonstrate that in their bones they understand why we play the game. They cannot concede the title of course because Louth did have enough chances to put the game away and not get caught in the 73rd minute – Louth today learned that you really do have to play better than the referee referees. But in offering Louth a replay Meath can show that football is not about war or conquest but about honour, nobility and dignity.

Sportsmanship counts for more than titles. What worth is a title when nobody admires you for winning it? If Meath march on in the Championship, they will be like men who dressed as women to climb into the women and children’s lifeboat, and the stain will last forever.

The title is poisonous for them. Everyone they play will know what happened today, and they will think: you’re Meath. You’re meant to be bigger than that.

Meath is the royal county, one of the perennial aristocrats of Gaelic Football. They are fourth in the roll of honour with twenty Leinster titles and seven All-Irelands. They can afford to make a sporting gesture to a neighbour and a sleeping giant of the game.

Tommy Carr was on the radio earlier this evening saying that a replay was impossible. Why? There is precedent. Didn’t Clare offer Offaly a replay in the hurling in 1998? Could that replay have gone ahead if Clare hadn’t put the good of the game first, to their own great disadvantage? Why can’t Meath do the same?

Meath could offer a replay and it not to happen. The GAA could refuse (and open a whole other can of worms, but we won’t worry about that for now) or Louth could think completely outside the box and decline the replay, to try their luck in the qualifiers. What a supreme gesture that would be against the vicissitudes of Fate, but Meath must offer the replay first as Louth cannot do anything to change things now. Meath must seize the day and say the game is bigger than us all, and the game will best be served by our offering Louth a replay. Whatever happens after that happens, but Meath’s honour demands they offer the replay.

There have been references made to Thierry Henry’s handball in the soccer last year. The difference is that FIFA is all about money and product, and nothing else. If it were, diving and cheating would not be as endemic in soccer as it is. Money has no time for honour.

But the GAA is an amateur association, and should therefore represent higher values. Now is a once in a lifetime chance for the Association to show that we are about honour and sportsmanship above anything else, and the power to make that statement rests with Meath. Meath is the home of the Hill of Tara, seat of the Irish High Kings. A disastrous refereeing decision has gifted Meath a supreme chance to make a supreme gesture. Let’s hope they seize the day.

FOCAL SCOIR: The abuse of the referee that occurred after the final whistle raises a number of separate issues, to do with stewarding, speed of Garda response and the rest of it. They are separate issues and any attempts to play one outrage against another is disingenuous. Two wrongs never make a right.

John O'Mahony, Like Humbert, Meets His Waterloo in Longford

Longford is surely en fete tonight, and good luck and congratulations to them all. Summer days like today are why you turn out in the winter and the porter will be as sweet as the night is long in the midlands tonight.

This is the second Mayo dream to end in Longford over a space of 212 years but the men who claimed the day are Gaels like ourselves and not an army of occupation led by a genocidal butcher. Good luck Longford, and long may you prosper.

Mayo can expect a good kicking from Uncle Eugene in the Indo on Monday but it’s the least of our worries now. The only reaction to any of this is a deep sadness for the past four years of Mayo football and the confirmation that another generation has moved on without winning an All-Ireland.

Blame and acrimony will be rife from Belmullet to Ballaghaderreen over Saturday night pints tonight but there’s nothing to be gained by it. Nobody who was involved in the Mayo setup this year wanted this, to be battered by Cork, battered by Sligo and now battered by Longford in three straight games. In the end Mayo fell like a house of cards, as the League final put shock lines through the team, leaving it destroyed and in freefall by the time the Championship came around.

John O’Mahony’s previously impeccable managerial CV is now sullied by his second coming as Mayo manager. Did Johnno want the job in the first place as part of a political plan, or was he bounced into it by the sort of behind the scenes shenanigans that seem part and parcel of Mayo GAA?

It doesn’t matter. Who cares? What possible difference can it make? Johnno is heartbroken tonight, the players, the supporters. The county has all senior inter-county football finished before the end of June. We haven’t seen that in a while.

So for once, let’s not tear the heads off each other. Let’s just think of Johnno as he was in his first incarnation, when he lead Mayo to their first All-Ireland in thirty-eight years in 1989. O’Mahony’s been criticised for some of his decisions in that final, but at least he was there in first place to get it wrong.

People look back now and think Mayo left that one behind but winning the semi-final really was that team’s All-Ireland. Fat people find it hard to remember what it’s like to be hungry. Johnno did his bit for Mayo in his time. That it didn’t work out this time is deeply, deeply sad, but it’s no cause for tar or feathers.

The trick is to learn and move on. Things happen us all in life, and that will never change. It’s how we react to things that defines us and makes us who we are. For better or for worse.

And now the Mayo County Board get a chance to truly define themselves. Mayo have been knocking at the door for so long now, and have had such consistent success at under-age levels, that now is not the time to panic. The county panicked in concluding that the team that reached two All-Irelands in three years were no good – “ladeens,” in a famously withering phrase. At least those ladeens were still kicking football in July.

The negative attitude to what were two very successful summers cost O’Mahony dearly, and the sort of self-immolation that’s popular in Mayo doesn't help maintain perspective. The three losses against Cork, Sligo and Longford were the end of a cycle, but the end of that cycle does not now mean that Mayo are Carlow all of a sudden. There’s no point in over-reacting or losing perspective.

The Mayo County Board need to stay calm, take deep breaths and ask themselves what are they about before the search begins for a new manager. They need to decide what traits they want themselves in a manager. Nobody has a perfect blend of abilities. The Board have to decide how they want those traits to blend, which ones to prioritise and which ones to leave to backroom staff. Should the new manager be a better coach than a man manager, say? How will responsibilities be devolved among the team – because management is very much a team game now?

How should the Board respond to the Scared Generation? There is a belief that men have to be jettisoned, that some players are permanently wounded by the disappointments of those All-Ireland years.

An Spailpín is of a contrary view. An Spailpín believes that those reverses can be used as a motivating tool. There’s no point in pretending that half a century of history didn’t happen. Better therefore to have someone like Liam McHale somewhere on the management team to remind individual players that losing stinks and the next generation does not want to be haunted as the previous ones are.

Some people will think this puts pressure on players. There’s pressure there already, and pretending that the weight of expectation isn’t there will not make it go away. Better to embrace it and draw strength from it than to use the “you’re a fish, you’re not a steak” philosophy. That one gets found out in the end.

The process will be long and arduous, but it’s not like we haven’t been here before. An Spailpín’s shortlist has three names – Ray Dempsey, James Horan and Pete McGrath. Let the search begin. Mayo will not be down for long.

Sligo's Day in the Sun Delivers Another Mayo Football Disaster

Sligo 0-15
Mayo 1-08

Mayo manager John O’Mahony was talking some fighting talk on the radio tonight. Mayo aren’t out of the Championship at all yet, he said. We’ll regroup, we’ll see where we are, we’ll move on, said Johnno. And he reminded the nation that he’s been here before. Galway got dumped out in the first round of Connacht in 2001 and they went on to win the All-Ireland. Why not Mayo?

It’s an interesting feature of John O’Mahony’s public pronouncements in his second coming as Mayo manager that his perception of the team’s potential seems to exist in reverse proportion to everybody else’s.

Johnno’s second coming started four years ago with his contention a team that got to two All-Ireland finals in three years was deeply flawed and had to be rebuilt, and tonight he’s saying that team that got beat out the gate by Sligo has All-Ireland potential.

No wonder he’s in Leinster House. That sort of statement fits right in. We are where we are, moving forward in the light of totality of experience, after all.

Of course, it is possible that Mayo could pull themselves together and make some sort of a run in the Championship. As Johnno said, it has happened before, and that’s the nature of knockout competition – you catch the wave, and ride it as far as you can.

But while it’s possible, it’s by no means probable. It is this blog’s considered view that if the revellers in Belmullet on its great fair day on the 15th of August still have a Mayo team in the Championship to talk about over their glasses of sherry that it will be the single greatest achievement of John O’Mahony’s long inter-county career. Bigger than the Galway All-Irelands, the Leitrim Connacht title and his taking of Mayo to their first All-Ireland final in 38 years in 1989.

The only thing Johnno has going for him is that it can’t get any worse. But out from that, things look pretty much insurmountable.

When Johnno took over from Mickey Moran and John Morrison as manager of Mayo, it was all about rebuilding. And every team he’s fielded in the four years has certainly been rebuilt. The thing is, rebuilding really should mean getting progressively better – as Sligo have got progressively better, for instance. Building, getting flattened and starting from scratch every year isn’t really rebuilding. It’s going around in circles.

There are serious questions arising from all this. About tactics and training and game plans. About why good players deteriorate, as good Mayo players have deteriorated in recent years. About why there seems to be a lack of fitness in the team, in this age of major advances in sports sciences. About how players are injured so often, again in this sports science age. But the startling absence of progress is the most worrying thing.

Sure Mayo could make a run. A Mayo twin tower inside line of Barry Moran and Aidan O’Shea presents completely different questions to anyone Mayo is playing, and Mayo has a rich pick of players, more so than most counties. But what would that mean for Alan Freeman, the one ray of sunshine for Mayo today?

Because it could get worse, actually. Mayo could field yet another “rebuilt” team in the qualifiers, against Longford, say, with McGarrity at corner forward and Conor Mortimer at center-half back, and beat them, and then maybe draw Kildare in Castlebar – to the exquisite relief of the County Board – and beat them, and then play Dublin in Croke Park and get annihilated in front of a baying Hill. That would be worse than today, for instance.

Or maybe getting beaten again by Kerry in Croke Park, with Jack O’Connor having told the team to go easy on us, like Kilkenny went easy on the Dublin hurlers last year. Out of pity. That would be worse. Mayo are in a bad, bad place tonight, and a Hollywood ending seems very, very unlikely. It’ll be short summer on the plain of the yews.

But while Mayo writhe in the horrors, Sligo bask in the joys and good for them. Kevin Walsh has been masterful in his management of Sligo, in the long term and outstandingly so during the game today, and in Eamon O’Hara Sligo have one of the all-time greats of the game, for any county.

Herman Melville wrote of Captain Ahab in Moby Dick that “"he piled upon the whale's white hump, the sum of all the rage and hate felt by his whole race. If his chest had been a cannon, he would have shot his heart upon it.” If you substitute pride and guts for rage and hate you have O’Hara in a nutshell, in every game he’s played. And he was that again today, even as his body finally begins to betray him. Eamon O’Hara is a credit and grace to the game, and the very best of luck to him and everyone involved in the Sligo setup. They deserve their day in the sun, and more than one at that.

Is the Championship in Danger?

The great Keith Duggan took a thoughtful and sombre sideline cut in the Irish Times on Saturday. Reflecting on what he perceived as a strange lack of spark in the Championship so far, Duggan wondered if somehow, through oversight or accident or simple process of evolution, the magic of the Championship has disappeared and its very future is now in doubt.

One of the strange things about the Championship is how little we understand it, really. How little we talk about its essential nature. It has been with us throughout the years, existing independently to the passage of time, a thing greater than ourselves.

They suspended the civil war in Kerry so Stater and Diehard could unite in a cause greater than either, that of the green and gold. The Championship was pristine, a Platonic ideal that existed as an embodiment of an Ireland that was the best of ourselves. But we never analysed it o tried to understand it. We just took it for granted, and assumed that it would always be there.

The Championship was able to survive independent of history because there was no history in Ireland. The country was stagnant for half a century. The reasons why are open to debate (although Tom Garvin did a pretty good summing them up in his book Preventing the Future), but stagnant it was.

And then things took off in the mid 1990s, at a pace of change we couldn’t have imagined. A lot of things happened in the country that should not have happened, mostly to do with money and how it was spent. Gaelic games became awash with money for the first time ever as part of that process. The Championship was sucked down to our levcel. And the question facing the Championship now, and the very GAA itself, is how does it now react to the loss of money in the light of the crash.

The very existence of the Championship is a miracle. A miracle of idealism. Croaking about unfairness in the Championship doesn’t take into account that the unfairness of the Championship protects the weak. The attempt to make it the Championship more fair, the backdoor system, is now a failure on two counts. It has strengthened the strong and it’s actual purpose as a money-making racket will be exposed very badly this summer.

It’s unfair that someone like Declan Browne, say, will never win an All-Ireland medal because he comes from a weaker county. But a transfer system were introduced, would Tipperary even be able to field a team in the Championship? The Championship may be unfair, but that unfairness is what keeps people going in some counties. The fact that no matter how small the population is, they compete on the same plane as Dublin, Cork or Galway. Do you deny one man, or a whole county? Unfair is a good thing.

We don’t really understand the nature of the Championship. The introduction of the backdoor was proof of this, and other discussions about how to “improve” it would surely kill the thing off altogether. We ought to treat the Championship like the exotic hothouse flower it is, and make all efforts to tender it and keep it alive. Because if it does wither, a light will go out in our lives that can never be lit again.



Technorati Tags: Ireland, culture, sport, GAA, football, Championship 2010

Mayo Championship Preview 2010

Leonard Cohen, like all great poets and artists, is a Mayoman. He’s not actually from Mayo, of course, but that doesn’t matter. Mayo is so much more a state of mind than an actual place, bounded by mere convention of geography or physical reality. Mayo is bigger than that.

And how else but through being a Mayoman in his soul could Cohen, the poet of romantic despair, have written so many songs that so precisely describe the condition of those associated with the team? Tonight Will Be Fine, the song the players sing the tunnel in the hope of avoiding another catastrophe. Ain’t No Cure for Love, as the fans pick the bones of another black day on the long road home. One of Us Cannot Be Wrong, as the Board try to figure out how in God’s name they got saddled with floodlights that they can’t turn on. And for the manager, Hallelujah, of course.

Hallelujah opens with a scene that’s very appropriate to John O’Mahony at the moment. King David is trying to write a psalm in order to give praise to God, and he’s finding it a bit of a struggle:

It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah

It’s just like looking into Johnno’s head, isn’t it? The baffled king composing Hallelujah. Herding cats is a fine job compared to this. And right now, it’s very hard to see them getting herded to Croke Park anytime in the late summer.

Anything can happen of course. O’Mahony has turned things around before, rejigging Galway after Roscommon hammered them in Tuam nine years ago. Maybe he can take the ashes currently before him and restore life to the husk of a football team.

Johnno was all about positivity after that loss against Cork two weeks ago. The problem is that he’s been talking down Mayo’s chances since he was given the keys of the car four years ago so it’s something of a challenge to suddenly turn that around and expect people to believe in a long summer.

An Spailpín hopes to God there’s positivity in the camp, because there’s very little of it in the county. Whatever else you can say about O’Mahony, he hasn’t been afraid to try players. All his team selections have been radical. But they haven’t worked, and that’s the crucial thing.

There’s no shame in losing to Cork. It’s not like Cork are a bad football team. But to see the Mayo team so lacking direction against Cork was heartbreaking.

Kieran Shannon wrote in the Tribune last Sunday that Mayo haven’t shown bite since 1997. Kieran Shannon must be watching a different a different Mayo to An Spailpín. There was plenty of bite in the team that challenged the Hill in 2006. The team that came back from 1-3 to 0-0 down after ten minutes to beat Galway in 2004. Bite isn’t the issue. Mayo’s issues are deeper than that.

And too deep, unfortunately, to resolve this year. There are many great players in Mayo – again, contrary to popular perception – but they don’t know where they’re playing or what they’re meant to do. They’ll give heart and soul for the colours and the county, but there are too many pieces out of place to fall into place in time to mount a serious run in the Championship this year.

The yearning of Mayo people for a deal sealed on the third Sunday of September is seen as unrealistic by many commentators. It does not seem impossible to An Spailpín Fánach. Mayo reach so many finals how is it unreasonable not to expect them to win one of them, if only by a combination of pox and the law of averages? No wonder the Minister for Education is trying to get Universities to accept people who have failed Honours Maths in the Leaving. As a nation, we're clearly cook at sums.

The happy day will come. It’s not impossible that it will come this year, of course, but it’s not likely. Which doesn’t meant we should give up. Heart with No Companion is another song that Leonard Cohen has written that speaks directly to the true-hearted men from the County Mayo.

Technorati Tags: Ireland, culture, sport, GAA, football, Championship 2010, Mayo

Football Championship 2010 Preview

There’s some talk in the corners of bars and public houses that this year will be a “down year” for Kerry. It is a measure of just how dominant Kerry have become since the introduction of the back-door qualifier system that what qualifier as a down year for Kerry would qualify very much as an up year for nearly every other county in the Championship.

What’s understood by a Kerry having a down year is that they will only get to an All-Ireland semi-final or final, instead of stomping the snot out of everyone in sight. There are GAA men up and down Ireland who would sacrifice their first born on Moloch’s smoking altar to have the county team still kick football when the pilgrims come down off the Reek. For Kerry, that sort of stuff doesn’t register.

The worst thing is, of course, it’s true. Anyone who doubts Kerry’s ability to get over retirements and emigration issues is someone who is deeply unfamiliar with Gaelic Football and the Kerry ethos. When Darragh Ó Sé retired, he simply remarked that the jersey would be there after him. The struggle goes ever on for them.

Tommy Walsh and the Slugger Kenneally may be upside down on the other side of the world but Kerry’s hopes have not gone down the dunny with them. The fact that Mike McCarthy has been coaxed back into the lists indicates that both he and Jack O’Connor think Sam is within their grasp once more. Why else would McCarthy bother?

Cork are favourites with the bookies, fluttering between 2/1 and 5/2, slightly ahead of Kerry at 11/4 or threes in spots. But there is a profound lack of value in betting on Cork because we have no evidence to say that Cork have dealt with their choking issues.

Kerry getting ambushed some sunny Saturday evening in Derry or Omagh mightn’t even save Cork, because it’s only by slaying the demon that Cork can truly purge their issues. That is the single biggest thing they have to face. Cork are spoiled with players, but the best team is not always the best players. There is no value in betting on Cork until we are sure their heads are right.

It’s hard to have full faith in Tyrone, who have lost the lean and hungry look that brought them those three All-Irelands in the last decade. There are good minors on the way, but they’re not there yet and football has become so physical that minors tend to get smashed to bits if they’re brought onto the senior Championship team too early. It’s hard to back Tyrone with any degree of confidence.

Dublin are never a good price because of the population that back the Dubs even if they were playing the New York Yankees at baseball. The price is always skewed by money on come what may. But when it comes to choking, Dublin are right up there with Cork and Mayo and Derry. No value here.

And then the prices start getting big, and you think: God, it is looking like a weak Championship this year alright. Cork, Kerry, maybe Tyrone, then the rest. But the Championship is still a knockout competition come August, and anybody who’s still alive come the last eight is in with a chance.

In recent years, there’s been a semi-final team who were not expected. Meath last year and in 2007. Wexford in 2008. Mayo 2006. Being in the last four is not an impossible dream for anybody. The problem is being sufficiently big-time to seize the day.

With Kerry and Cork locked in their own private duel there’s a chance for a team to sneak into that semi-final spot and after that they are only 140 minutes away from Sam. Of the contenders, it’s hard to put money on Derry, Donegal or Down as they flattered to deceive in the past. Down and Armagh played a fantastic Division 2 final and Armagh have, in Steven McDonnell, one of the true giants of the game.

But as far as An Spailpín is concerned, the best bet to blow the Championship wide open is Joe Kernan’s Galway.

The poor mouth emanating from New York last week is to be taken with a pinch of salt. No reason to believe that Galway couldn’t smush New York any time they wanted; which is exactly what happened in the end, of course, as Padraic Joyce did what he does.

The hammering suffered by Galway in the first game of the League in Castlebar is the most foolish gold of all. There was a profile of Galway in the Sunday Times of March 21st that was very instructive.

Galway have a very scientific training regime going on at the minute, using a Stat Sports GPS tracking system to monitor heart rate, distance covered, pace and hits taken. They cared very little for that game back in February. But come June and a game against either Sligo or Mayo, Galway will be roaring like bulls. If they can get enough possession to feed their forwards, they will do damage. And at 18/1 best price for Sam with Boyle sports, they are not a bad bet to find that semi-final sweet spot and who knows what may happen then. Other than laying off on Cork and Kerry, of course.

Mayo preview coming up tomorrow. Dia is Muire linn.

Technorati Tags: Ireland, culture, sport, GAA, football, Championship 2010