The Year in Sports

Dublin’s All-Ireland title, their third in five years, makes a strong case for Dublin’s status as Gaelic football’s team of the decade. Not least as there could still be more titles to come.

This is not to say that they are invincible. And if anyone wants to quibble with Dublin’s achievement he or she could point out to the poor quality of opposition Dublin have met in finals – Mayo in 2013, and Kerry’s extraordinary collapse. There is also the continuing embarrassment of Leinster football, an embarrassment that looks set to continue with a bizarre venue having been chosen for Dublin’s first Championship away game since Biddy Mulligan was a slip of a girl.

But these are pointless cavils. Dublin are the best team in the country because they have the best players. And those best players don’t look like they’re going anywhere just yet.

Who can challenge them? The stark division between haves and have-nots continues, as mortal counties are crushed between the twin rocks of the back-door system and that most exclusive club that is Division 1 of the National Football League.

Kieran Shannon of the Examiner has made the point this year that addressing the League structure would be far more helpful than codding ourselves that the Championship will – or can – be changed. The Croke Park grandees have paid this not one blind bit of heed, and seem determined to bring back the unloved B Championship. Sigh.

Of the potential challengers, Tyrone may have overtaken Donegal in the pecking order, but otherwise it’s as-you-were for the Big Four. The people of Mayo will wonder if Stephen Rochford is the long-awaited Messiah but the reality is that the team is now manager-independent, really. Unpleasant though it was, the putsch of the previous management team shows that this Mayo panel is now complete in every way.

Everything you read in the papers about Mayo being short a forward or being too loose at the back or not knowing what to with Aidan O’Shea is just paper-talk. Only some truly poxy luck has kept Mayo from winning an All-Ireland since the revival of the 1990s, and luck has to change sometime.

Christy O’Connor had a typically excellent piece in the Indo a few days about the Kilkenny Hurling Imperium, and how it continues even though the playing standard is not what it was. The kings will be kings until someone rises to challenge them, but who that someone might be is anybody’s case.

Your correspondent is a great fan of the Banner County but, although far from a hurling expert, I will eat every single hat I own if Clare win the All-Ireland. Although hailed in the media as a triumph, the inclusion of Dónal Óg Cusack in the Clare back-room team is a sure-fire recipe for disaster. Neither Dónal Óg nor Davy Fitz are noted for their ability to get along with regular people. How in God’s Holy Name they are meant to get on with each other is a Sixth Glorious Mystery. It’ll all end in tears before the hay is saved.

Speaking of tears, it is a generally odious thing to say I told you so, but this is the still the Season of Goodwill so I will chance my arm. This is from last year’s sports review piece in this space:

Reader, Ireland have never won a World Cup playoff game in the seven times the competition has been held, including two years, 1999 and 2007, when Ireland couldn’t even get out of their group. The Irish rugby public should think about crawling before thinking about walking.

And lo, it did come to pass. It was speculated here before the event that the Rugby World Cup would be a crashing bore, something that did not go down well with the public at the time. It wasn’t a crashing bore, but anyone who’s paying attention and is brave enough to be honest with him or herself can see that the game is changing massively, both in the way it’s played and the way it’s organised. The question, then, is whether the change is evolution or devolution.

Rugby has generally been the best of all sports in adjusting its rules to remain true to the spirit of the game as teams seek every edge, but it’s behind the times now. There are too many games decided by penalties at the breakdown which, when it comes to great sporting spectacles, make for rather Hobbesian viewing.

A sign of that evolution – or devolution – was in an offhand comment from Brian O’Driscoll while holding a mic for BT Sports during the recent Ulster v Toulouse game at Kingspan Ravenhill. O’Driscoll has a keen eye and praised Vincent Clerc for taking up a particular defensive position at one stage in the game, and that’s great. But nobody every paid in to watch Simon Geoghegan defend, or David Campese or, God save us, Doctor Sir AJF O’Reilly. If rugby isn’t about running with ball in hand it’s about nothing. Dangerous times for the ancient and glorious game.

Rugby has ruled the roost as the Nation’s Choice for the past number of years because people like winning. Martin O’Neill’s achievement in getting Ireland to the European Qualifiers may challenge rugby’s dominance. It was funny to note all the soccer journalists second-guess O’Neill all they way until the team actually qualified, by which time the u-turn was made in a cacophony of screeching brakes and stench of burning rubber.

As it was with the players, not least the much reviled Glen Whelan. It is worth closing, then, by noting that not everyone was derelict in his or her duty by Whelan when nobody was singing because nobody was winning. The great Keith Duggan wrote a marvellous piece in the Irish Times about Whelan, his role for Ireland and the nature of the professional soccer player back last June. Treat yourself friends, and check it out.

The Cork Footballers are Bluffing

The current Cork football panel made a pretence of solidarity with their comrades on the 2008 hurling panel last night. The footballers released a statement that they too would withdraw their services from the Cork County Board if Gerald McCarthy remains as hurling manager.

An Spailpín Fánach is convinced to his marrow that they are bluffing, and that bluff should be called.

The reason for this is because the footballers are not going on strike now, but at the end of the National League, if McCarthy remains in charge. And if that isn’t a hedged bet then An Spailpín has never seen one.

Here’s the thing: the footballers have had all winter to decide how they feel about the hurlers, so this statement is quite late in the day. If they were serious, they’d go on strike now, and settle the thing once and for all.

But they’re clearly not willing to sacrifice the National League, and if they’re not willing to sacrifice the National League, you can be pretty damn sure they’re not going to sacrifice the Championship – not least when they themselves are a good outside bet to win the thing. Chances of an All-Ireland medal are far less common for Cork footballers than Cork hurlers; they’re not going to give that up just so Dónál Óg Cusack can indulge his ego.

It’s reasonable to presume that last night’s statement is the last throw of the dice by Cusack and his cohorts, calling in the favour they feel the footballers owe them over that Teddy Holland business last year. But the footballers haven’t bought into it, and are just doing this for show. Otherwise, they would down tools here and now. Dónal Óg and the boys are at the end of the cliff. Time to let the sea have them, and be done with the whole ugly, selfish business once and for all.

One of the hardest things to take about the current dispute was all that old blather that this was all done for the greater good of Cork hurling, and the fine young men who are coming behind. No. What age is Frank Murphy? The man is in the autumn of his years, while Cusack, Gardiner, Ó hAlpín and the rest have forty or fifty years of service each before them. They can do plenty for the future of Cork hurling in fifty years. But they’re not interested in that; only in themselves, their “careers” – funny word for an amateur game – and their own high estimation of their worth. This is their final kick, and soon we’ll be able to close the book on the whole sorry business. Thank God, and small loss.






Technorati Tags: Ireland, sport, GAA, hurling, football, Dónal Óg Cusack, Gerald McCarthy, Cork

When is a Cork Hurler Not a Cork Hurler?

As the Cork hurling nightmare drags painfully on An Spailpín Fánach can’t help but notice that there is an issue of nomenclature that is being overlooked in the dispute. An issue of nomenclature that, if resolved, could see a radical change of perspective and quick resolution of the dispute.

This is the issue: the group of thirty or so men who like issuing press releases to the Examiner newspaper are referred to in all media as “the Cork hurlers.” And this is plainly not the case.

The question of who hurls for Cork, or for any county, is at the discretion of the manager of that county team. Just because one has hurled for Cork in the past does not mean that one will do so again. In fact, because this is now the off-season, you could argue that there are no Cork hurlers as Cork aren’t actually hurling.

It’s very difficult not to think that Dónal Óg Cusack and his comrades are displaying a stunning level of arrogance in presuming some sort of automatic right to the jersey. If Tomás Mulcahy, John Fenton and Kevin Hennessey, for instance, issued a statement backing the current Cork County Board – who are just people who are passing through as well, of course – would the papers headline the statement as coming from “the Cork hurlers?” Don’t Mulcahy, Fenton and Hennessey deserve the title just as much as Cusack and his comrades? What have John Gardiner and co done on the field of honour that Tomás Mulcahy hasn’t?

The only issue, perhaps, maybe, would be that Dónal Óg still has a role to play in inter-county hurling. An Spailpín Fánach would question that assumption that also. These gentlemen’s inability see bigger pictures would make you wonder just how much a team game suits them.

It’s common in the media to defend Dónal Óg and his comrades by saying that they only want to play – Tom Humphries writes in Saturday’s Irish Times that it “isn’t about playing for Cork. It’s about winning for Cork.”

Up to a point, Lord Copper. All any team can do is play; whether they win or not depends on other factors, not least of whom are the other fellas, who may just fancy winning themselves. Playing a game is an end of itself – winning is an ancillary benefit. It is certainly not something that can be guaranteed.

But, just for pigiron, let’s give Dónal Óg and his comrades the benefit of the doubt. Here’s what Keith Duggan wrote in Sideline Cut on Saturday, where he may have summed up the whole dispute in an aside.

“For the Cork hurlers, it is simple. This group have always been about the very quality Kilkenny have been rightly lauded for - the pursuit of excellence. They believe there is no point playing at all unless the preparation and the attention to detail are second to none.”

No point in playing at all unless everything is just right. One of the common features of children who are spoilt is that they have no interest in playing unless everything is just to their satisfaction. The better brought up children will make the best of things as they are. The latter are more likely to enjoy it, and to enjoy greater benefits from it. Perhaps its not Kieran Mulvey whom is needed by the Cork hurlers but Ms Jo Frost, television’s Supernanny? Would a few hours on the naughty step cause certain parties to get over themselves and get with the program?

Six years since their first strike action, An Spailpín Fánach is still struggling to understand what exactly it is Dónal Óg and co want. After all, Cork have won over one hundred All-Ireland titles across all codes and age groups. Just how bad can the preparation be? How many would they win if they had been prepared correctly?

There’s a fierce amount that doesn’t add up in any of this and the Dónal Óg and his comrades are not being made accountable for their wild statements. For instance, John Gardiner was on Prime Time on Thursday night claiming that Frank Murphy wanted “absolute power.” Miriam O’Callaghan did not ask him to define the term “absolute,” which is pretty far ranging. Does Frank Murphy want the power of life and death, one of the rights enjoyed by the absolute monarchs of Europe before Napoleon and Age of Revolution? This is what we need to know. If Frank is bad that way, then certainly we should be told. But if he’s not, then maybe they shouldn’t say he is.

Miriam asked John Gardiner if it was about pay. Gardiner said “we have no interested in being paid at this time.” The last three words are interesting, aren’t they?

To An Spailpín’s mind, the solution is simple. Gerald McCarthy has only one option. It’s time to phone Eddie Hobbs and, if he’s still elegible, Gerald needs to tell Eddie to start doing laps; he’s going in top of the right on Sunday week for that challenge in Fermoy. Keith Duggan remarks that no-one wants to see a shadow team line out against Tipperary next summer. An Spailpín will sooner see that than see the Association torn asunder by the selfishness of a few who can’t seem to understand that they are only minding jerseys for someone else who’s coming along.






Technorati Tags: Ireland, sport, GAA, hurling, Dónal Óg Cusack, Gerald McCarthy, Cork