The Evolution of Tyrone Football

1996. Peter Canavan is reminded of his place.

Bill Simmons of ESPN remarked in the run-up to this year’s Super Bowl that the US media is considerably behind the general public in its coverage of steroids in American football. In the same way, the GAA media does not always cover what people are talking about in regard to Gaelic games.

There are rows in camps that are never reported on but are discussed among GAA people in every bar and at every crossroads in Ireland. There are peculiar funding issues that the media do not touch with a ten-foot-pole but that, again, are very much the lingua franca of common GAA debate.

And then there is the question of what’s on and what’s not. This is one of the reasons why we’re still talking about Joe Brolly disgracing himself three weeks later. There have always been teams that, ahem, play on the edge in the GAA. It’s just that they are not discussed in the media, other than in code. Such-and-such a team play on the edge. They’re hard, but fair. Theirs is a robust brand of football.

And these codes cover a multitude of sins. The problem as regards journalism is that once someone breaks cover as Brolly did, and accuses one team of being dirtier than any other team in Ireland, the language doesn’t exist to discuss the accusation properly.

For over one hundred years teams and players have been given the benefit of the doubt, and then anointed in retirement, as the sepia tint of history and nostalgia washes out the blood and bruises of the opposition. As such, people are very unsure of their ground as regards Tyrone’s particular style of play.

Which is a pity. It’s a pity in terms of journalism, because the games are one of the few things that have been an unqualified success in Ireland since the Civil War. They should be correctly recorded, so that future generations may understand. And it’s also a pity because Tyrone, three-time All-Ireland Champions and still in with a chance of four, are being given a bad name that those good football people do not deserve.

“Dirty” play, in GAA terms, is hard to define. Striking – that is to say, punching someone – is considered a worse offence than spitting, in sporting and in civil law. But in sporting culture, spitting is by far the worse offence.

If you punch someone, there’s an above average chance that someone will punch back, and the best puncher will win the day. Spitting doesn’t work like that. Spitting back doesn’t even the score, so all the spat-upon can do is punch the spitter. This will get the spat-upon sent off, and the spitter wins hands-down.

That’s just one example. There are many, many more examples, at different levels of nefariousness. The GAA rules as written are different to the GAA rules as refereed, because so many decisions are at the discretion of the referee. And that is the root cause of the issue.

Ger Loughnane remarks in his autobiography that he repeatedly told his great Clare team of the ‘90s that the referee would not protect them. They had to protect themselves. This is a fundamental truth of the GAA, and one that Tyrone have learned the hard way.

Look at the history of Tyrone football. Tyrone won their first Ulster title in 1956, when they were the first new county to win Ulster since 1900. Tyrone won only four more Ulster titles before beating Galway in an All-Ireland semi-final and were then unlucky to lose to Kerry after being seven points up in the 1986 Final.

Ten years later, Tyrone were back in the All-Ireland final. They lost to Dublin after a free was awarded to Dublin in the dying seconds. A visibly distraught Tyrone manager, Art McRory, was interviewed coming off the pitch. “I knew Dublin needed to win an All-Ireland,” he said, “but I didn’t know they needed it that badly.”

McRory apologised for his unsporting remarks almost immediately, but all he did was vocalise what a lot of people watching thought. The following year, Tyrone retained their Ulster Championship but lost the All-Ireland semi-final to Meath.

Tyrone were mugged in that semi-final. Peter Canavan carried Tyrone on his back in the mid-nineties. Meath sandwiched him while he was still in the air after kicking a point and that was that danger taken care of for the rest of the game. Two other Tyrone players had their heads stood on.

Meath went on to win the All-Ireland in 1996, and again in 1999. One of the men who sandwiched Canavan is considered, along with Anthony Tohill, the greatest midfielder of the 90s. One of the men who stood on a Tyrone head is on the GAA Team of the Millennium.

The referee will not protect you, said Loughnane. You have to protect yourself.

Liam Hayes wrote about Meath’s robust style of play in his memoir, Out of Our Skins. He admitted that Meath were dirty, and did no small amount of chirping during a game.

There is one remarkable passage in which he describes how Meath made a point of mentally breaking a new Dublin midfielder on his debut, for fear he might develop into a player down the line. A solution worthy of King Herod himself.

Hayes also wrote that Meath developed that tough style because they were tired of being pushed around by the great Dublin team of the 1970s, a team that included a number of notoriously dangerous characters. And Dublin got tough, they say, to go toe-to-toe with the great Meath team of the 1960s. And so on into the past it goes.

If there’s a problem with Gaelic football the problem is in the rules, not in the men. Tyrone are no better or no worse than average and are not doing what so many teams have done before them. You can only dance with the girls in the hall. If the girls in this particular hall can crack their knuckles and drink pints in one swallow, you have to match them or go dance somewhere else. The referee will not protect you. You have to protect yourself.

By the Numbers - the Gaelic Football All-Stars

Donegal’s haul of eight All-Stars puts Donegal 2012 joint second on the list for the most dominating performance of All-Ireland football champions at the All-Stars. Of course, the All-Stars aren’t quite the most accurately calibrated metric in a country that is generally adverse to precision, but come on. The winter is almost here and we need to make the most of what’s left of the summer’s fun before the frost covers the green isle once more.

Besides; questionable though the process behind the All-Stars might be, they are very much part of what we are. Or at least, the poster is.

They don’t seem to make them any more, but once the All-Star poster was an essential feature of any self-respecting Irish bar, and it is a reasonable rule of thumb to posit that the older the poster, the sweeter the poster. There’s a fine selection the GAA museum, with those distinctive black borders and the mugshots of men’s men. Reader, treat yourself sometime.

Looking at the 630 awards over 42 years, we discover that the typical All-Star team breaks down at an average of six All-Ireland winners, three runners-up and six of the rest. The football of the year, which began 1995, is generally from the champions too – Peter Canavan in 1995, Steven McDonnell in 2003 and Bernard Brogan in 2010 are the exceptions.

The biggest haul of All-Stars for All-Ireland champions is nine, which happened twice. Those years were 1977 and 1981, the bookend years of Kerry’s four-in-a-row. This year’s Donegal join Tyrone in 2005 with their eight awards – 2005 saw only three counties, Tyrone, Kerry and Armagh, honoured at the All-Stars, the lowest number ever. So much for the back door shining a light on the little guy.

The lowest haul of All-Stars for the champions is four, which has happened four times. Offaly won four in 1971, the first year of the All-Stars, when a highest-ever ten counties were honoured. Dublin got only 4 All-Stars in 1983, when they boxed their way past Galway in a notoriously ill-tempered game.

Down, astonishingly, got only four All-Stars in 1991 while Meath, whom Down defeated in the final, got six. This is the only time the losers have got more All-Stars than the champions.

There have been three years when the All-Stars divided equally between the champions and the losing finalists – 1971, that great year when all men stood equal saw the champions, Offaly, and the runners-up, Galway, got four each. 1996 and 2010 saw five each to the winners and losers of those years.

The most honoured of the runners-up were Meath in 1991, which was also the year of their famous marathon encounter against Dublin in the Leinster Championship. Three Dubs from that remarkable series had to decide between beef or salmon in the Burlington that year – Keith Barr, Tommy “Tom” Carr and Mick “Michael” Deegan.

Mayo have four All-Stars this year, which is above the average for All-Ireland runners-up. There has never been a year when no runner-up was nominated but there have been two years when just one runner-up got an All-Star and nine years when they got just two. There is nothing like getting tonked on the fourth Sunday in September to make footballers look bad before the gentlemen of the press.

There have been seven years when the All-Stars who didn’t play in the All-Ireland made up more than half the All-Star team. The biggest assembly of these was in 1983, of course. Ten players from seven different counties were awarded that year. Down and Offaly got two each, even though neither won their provinces. Jack O’Shea, who was captain of Kerry in 1983, got one as well, almost certainly on the strength of his sheer Jacko-icity.

Nine All-Stars came from outside the final in 1997 and 2007. The 1997 Leinster Champions Offaly got only one All-Star, corner-back Cathal Daly, as did Ulster Champions Cavan, whose great midfielder Dermot Cabe was slotted in at wing-forward.

Each province knows what it is to be left without a representative on the All-Star team, but only Connacht has had that dubious honour more than once. Seven times, in fact – 1975, 1982, 1988, 2005 and three years in a row, between 2007 and 2009. Sligo’s Charlie Harrison broke the duck in 2010.

Just four counties have won over half of the 630 awards over 42 years – Kerry have 127, Dublin have 86, Cork have 64 and Meath have 49. Tyrone is the leading Ulster county on 40 while Galway heads the list for Connacht with 37. There are seven counties, including London and New York, who have yet to win any All-Stars at all, with Limerick and Longford perhaps the hardest done by out of those seven in recent years.

You'll Never Beat the Royals

Wouldn’t it be perfect if the Meath revival turns out to have been inspired by the handshake between Martin McGuinness, Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, and Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain? It would be the grace note on an excellent GAA weekend if the boys of Nobber turn out to have gotten the hump over the fawning coverage given to a foreign monarch and decided to remind the nation that Ireland has her Royals too.

In terms of physiognomy, the royals of Meath prefer the bucket jaw to the chinless wonder that is so distinctive of the British upper classes, but other than that the blue bloods are quite similar. The belief that they are born to rule sees both entities survive into a 21^st Century where, really, they should have been put out to pasture many years ago.

Modern GAA thinking tells us that Meath never should have been let near Kildare yesterday in the first place. Kildare were promoted to Division 1 this year, while Meath sank to Division 3. Kildare thumped Offaly last time out, while Meath were taken to a replay by Carlow. The modern form book tells us this is the very definition of a mismatch, and nobody will gain anything when Kildare inevitably murder helpless, hapless Meath.

Meath, bless them, couldn’t give a chew of tobacco for the form book. Meath only know one way to play. Meath catch it and they kick it. When Meath’s players are good enough they win, and when they’re not they lose. There is nothing esoteric about Meath. They are or they ain’t.

Of course, Kildare played their part in the Meath victory. Kildare did not deliver on the day, and the reason why is something that will concern the great GAA people of Kildare greatly in the two weeks they have left to put their season back on track. There was certainly a marked difference between Meath’s potency in front of goal and Kildare’s.

It is one of the great coincidences of modern times that Seánie Johnson should be overcome with a desire to play for Kildare at the exact moment when a player like Johnson is precisely what could make the difference for Kildare’s hopes of a first All-Ireland since 1928. Johnson gets a lot of grief for a private citizen, and it’s hard not to wonder if he’s a pawn in a bigger game. Whoever the behind-the-scenes grandmaster is should have a long, hard look at himself.

But that, of course, is a debate for another day. Yesterday was Meath’s day. Dublin will be favourites against them in the final of course, and will probably win it. But yesterday was one of those days when the stars aligned and Meath enjoyed one of their great days of the post-Boylan era.

Meath have shown intermittent signs of life before. They shocked Mayo in 2009 but couldn't keep her lit against Kerry, who extracted revenge for 2001 in the semi-final. Meath’s luster dulled further the following year when they were too chicken to offer Louth a replay after the controversial end to the Leinster Final. There are the ongoing Borgia-style politics that go on in their managerial appointments. These are all issues that have to be dealt with and it would be naïve to ignore them.

But for the seventy minutes in Croke Park, Meath shook off their recent humiliations and restored the ermine, if only for a while. Their inside men were outstanding, their midfield dominant and their defenders brave as Lyons.

Dara Ó Cinnéide wrote some years ago that Meath is a petri dish for the GAA in the 21^st Century. The country is changing from rural to urban. The rate of change is different in different counties, but the change itself is as inevitable as income tax.  Meath is significant because it’s in Meath that the rate of change is fastest, and where the recent winning tradition is strongest. On yesterday’s evidence, there’s hope for the GAA to survive and thrive in the transition. It’s great to see.

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.

Déjà Vu All Over Again

Meath 2-15
Mayo 1-15

Mayo sleepwalked their way into the whirring blades of a Royal combine harvester today in Croke Park. As Jack O’Connor has remarked, the last thing that a team who are warm favourites in a game can do is give the opposition a chance to find their feet. Mayo didn’t do that against Roscommon, but they did against Meath today, and paid the price.

Mayo started better than Meath but they did not make that superiority count. Then, as the game wore on, belief grew in Meath while it withered proportionally in Mayo, as Mayo’s leaders failed to lead.

After a poor start, Meath led by a point at half-time and Mayo were in deep trouble. The substitution of Conor Mortimer for Tom Parsons exposed just how limited Mayo’s tactical options were, and every substitute that Mayo brought on underlined it more and more, as the hole got deeper and deeper. By the last ten minutes, Mayo were playing with their heads down, while Meath were cracking the glory points into the Canal End, smiling sheepishly to the crowd as another one whizzed over the bar.

There was no Plan B for Mayo today. When Tom Parsons was failing to win aerial ball in the first twenty minutes Mayo did not send it in low, or run with it. They just hoped that things would go right.

You can’t hope. Hope is no good. You have to make things happen if you want to win. Winning is about knowing, not hoping.

Liam O’Malley coming on for Donal Vaughan, who was suffering in the corner, is another example of hoping, rather than knowing. If Liam O’Malley wasn’t good enough to start ahead of Donal Vaughan in the first place, why bring him on?

The only reason to do so is because you’re hoping for the best, and you can’t do that. If O’Malley isn’t good enough and Vaughan is suffering, you have to look further down the bench, and not second guess yourself about O’Malley. James Nallen was the obvious replacement for Vaughan, because of his vast experience. Why wasn’t he brought on? How much worse can it have gotten? And if Nallen isn’t good enough, why is he on the panel? It doesn’t add up.

The talk in the media about a “new” Mayo, working for each other and coming back from adversity as they have not done before, is just soft chat. Mayo did not get to four All-Ireland finals in the past thirteen years without working for each other or coming back from adversity.

The notion of Mayo teams not working for each other was a sideways crack at a notion that Mayo had players in the past who played for themselves and not the team. That theory is not supported by the facts. Those teams got to All-Ireland finals. They can't have been that bad. But when outsiders say Mayo overachieved, Mayo tug their forelocks, instead of saying the All-Ireland final is exactly where Mayo deserved to be in those years. And just how good being in the All-Ireland final is is underlined by every year Mayo are not.

The point is that the 2004 and 2006 teams, and 1996 and 1997 teams, were better than they have been given credit for. Losing those All-Irelands hurt, but what bliss to have got that far. Two games further than this year or last year, three further than 2007, four further than 2006.

Your correspondent suggested in this space that anything after the Connacht title this year would be jam, and there is now no more jam this year for Mayo. The Nestor Cup is all Mayo 2009 are worth, as conclusively proved by events today at Croke Park. This does not mean the Mayo team didn’t try their best – of course they did. They're just not good enough.

It’s hard to see how James Nallen and David Heaney will have the stomach for any more of this and if that’s the case then that’s two more Mayo giants who will finish their careers without celtic crosses. How sad. How bitterly, bitterly sad.

There was an opinion abroad that this semi-final didn’t matter, that whoever won it was a lamb to a Kerry slaughter anyway. But An Spailpín isn’t so sure. This win will stand to Meath, and they could derive a lot from it. Because this has happened before, one week less than seventeen years ago.

On August 16th, 1992, another red-above-the-green Mayo team played another team in yellow in Croke Park. Donegal had never won in Croke Park before that, and were like lambs in headlights at the start of that All-Ireland semi-final. But as the game wore on Donegal’s confidence grew as Mayo’s wilted, just as we saw again today.

That Mayo team was shot through with men who had played in an All-Ireland final too – Peter Ford, Seán Maher, TJ Kilgallon, Liam McHale, Anthony Finnerty – and beating them gave Donegal the belief that they could make something happen in the final against Dublin. Meath were just as tentative against Mayo in the first half today as Donegal were sixteen years and fifty-one weeks ago, but Meath will be bulling for a crack at Kerry tonight after their win. Chest-thumping, bring-them-on-until-we-have-a-crack-at-them bulling.

This is Mayo’s gift – a win over Mayo can be the making of a team. Even when the colours don’t match as exactly as they did today.

Dinny Allen has spoken about how losing the 1989 final would have broken Cork, but they were able to beat Mayo and then go on win again in 1990. Seán Óg de Paor and Kevin Walsh have both gone on the record as saying that the win over Mayo in Castlebar in 1998 was the making of Galway. And that's a very bitter reality for the heather county. What a terrible pity that Mayo can’t deal with their immense psychological issues by playing that one team against whom a victory can make a team that can win All-Irelands. Themselves.





Technorati Tags: Ireland, sport, football, GAA, Championship 2009, Mayo, Meath

By Royal Command: A Football Lesson in Meath

Mayo’s quarter-final encounter with Meath this weekend brings back all sorts of bittersweet memories of times gone by. But An Spailpín’s abiding insight into Meath football when the Royals were at their pomp wasn’t in 1996 but one year after, when Mayo’s current run of misery against Kerry began.

Four of us were travelling home to Galway on that grey evening after the All-Ireland Final of 1997 – three broken-hearted Mayomen, and one half-Kerryman who, as Maurice Fitzgerald’s greatest fan, then and now, was in a state of bliss that would last well into the winter.

By eight o’clock, it was becoming obvious that there was no way we were going to be back in time to see the Sunday Game and, as noted in this space before, you have to see the Sunday Game on All-Ireland Sunday night to make the experience complete.

1997 was before the current era of road-building and your correspondent was taking the common shortcut at that time, through Summerhill and Ballivor to emerge somewhere between Kinnegad and Mullingar. As we reached nine o’clock and counting, it became obvious that we would have to stop and catch the highlights on Royal ground.

We got a warm welcome in whatever bar it was we were in, and appeased the local gods by buying tickets for the local club lotto. We watched in teary misery as Maurice Fitzgerald popped up over again and again on the Sunday Game, much to the amusement of the locals.

“Maurice Fitzgerald wouldn’t have scored that against us,” they liked to remark after every point Mossie stroked over. Nobody cracked their knuckles, but we knew full well what they meant. Martin O’Connell had taken his famous stand on Brian Dooher only thirteen months before, and it tended to stay in the memory.

But what intrigues An Spailpín now, on the eve of this weekend’s renewed hostilities, is that four years on from that night in Ballivor Padraic Joyce did to Meath exactly what Maurice Fitzgerald had done to Mayo. Joyce beat them on his own. Ten points he scored that day, and Meath have never recovered. No Leinster titles since, no All-Ireland glory. Classy looking forwards but a bit on the beefy side. No John McDermott in midfield, and no backs as flat-out dangerous as were those bad, bad men of the ‘eighties – Harnan, Foley, Lyons.

The big question in Mayo concerns who’ll replace full-forward Barry Moran, whom Kevin McStay said on the Sunday Game would definitely not start due to injury. The temptation must be to play Aiden O’Shea at full-forward and start Conor Mortimer in the corner, but that changes the shape of the team and limits the type of ball that can be sent in. Starting Tom Parsons is a daring option and would be An Spailpín Fánach’s second choice. Hard to believe a use can’t be found for a player of such class.

An Spailpín’s first choice would be Ciarán McDonald in the inside line, of course. Mike McCarthy’s recent performances for Kerry would suggest that maybe being two years away from the county scene doesn’t really dull the edge all that much, and An Spailpín Fánach just cannot believe that McDonald has nothing left to contribute. But we shall see, of course.

Finally, either county would be foolish indeed to believe Colm O’Rourke’s proposition on TV at the end of the Dublin v Kerry game that neither Meath nor Mayo could beat Kerry. Colm didn't think Kerry would beat Dublin either, and we all saw how that worked out. Both Mayo and Meath should embrace the chance of taking on Kerry at the end of the month.

It’s a question of if you want to live your life on your feet or on your knees. It’s not about being able to take the heat – it’s about wanting the heat, so that you can finally see who you really are. Whichever team has the most players who licked their lips in anticipation at the prospect of facing Kerry will win on Sunday. Simple as that.





Technorati Tags: Ireland, sport, football, GAA, Championship 2009, Mayo, Meath

Sligo Sailing to Byzantium, Royals Rising from the Tomb

It looks like another mouth-watering weekend at headquarters for GAA men and women this weekend. An Spailpín Fánach knows enough about hurling to know that he knows nothing about hurling and as such will leave speculation on the ancient and noble game to those that understand it better than I. But the Saturday program in the football looks tasty indeed, with one novel pairing and one rather sturm und drang looking rematch.

The pundit nation has been saying for some weeks now that, painful and all as it is for them (the pundit nation) to cast slights and/or aspersions on Sligo’s apocalyptic achievement in winning the Nestor Cup, Sligo are quite clearly chum, prey, born victims, tourists on Store Street, doomed. Everybody in the qualifiers has been licking their lips at the prospect of drawing Sligo in the quarter finals (how Central Council must have been tempted to bend the rules – just this once! – and have Sligo play Dublin) and now to Cork falls the honour of delivering the coup de grace to the plucky Yeats’ Countymen.

An Spailpín Fánach holds a contrary view. Sligo are not used to the big time certainly, and your correspondent would fear for his neighbours’ chances against Meath or Monaghan or Derry. But Cork is the ideal team for Sligo to have drawn, and the reason is this – if Billy Morgan couldn’t get his charges to focus on Louth, with their All-Ireland title pedigree, how will Billy get his team to concentrate for Sligo, with only three Nestor Cups to show for one hundred and twenty years?

How bare that cupboard looks compared to Cork’s, which heaves under the strain of its one hundred plus titles, with one more added only a few short months ago? And as each Cork man stands to attention during the anthem and looks at his Sligo marker, how hard will he find it to suppress his haughty snigger, and the feeling that he’s been challenged to a fight by his kid sister, braces, bangs and all?

If anything Louth have done Sligo a disservice, by giving Cork an early warning of the danger of complacency in a simple game like football, where class lines are not as clearly delineated as popular perception has it. Billy Morgan, the greatest football man in the proud history of a proud county, will have been banging that home to his men morning, noon and night since they left Portlaoise, but deep down, can Cork really take Sligo seriously? And by the time they do, will it be too late?

Of course, Sligo will want to learn how to pop over those thirteen yard frees, or else they’re as well to stay at home listening to their Westlife records. We may take that as read. And, to be honest, they’ll need a goal or two as well, as they just aren’t natural scorers and will need the boost a goal gives. But let’s not forget that Cork don’t really shoot the lights out either, and were having as much trouble finding their new secret weapon as An Taoiseach is currently having finding his bank receipts. Add into the mix the remarkable Eamon O’Hara, as fine as player as exists in the game and a man who, as the picture from the Mayo News shows, can have a remarkable ability to get on the opposition’s nerves, and all of a sudden Sligo don’t look that bad a proposition at all. Least of all with a five point start as offered by Ladbrokes.

The second match is a different kettle of fists. These teams will have no problems at all taking each other seriously – both multiple All-Ireland winners in the past ten years, and both participants in a remarkably violent All-Ireland semi-final eleven (eleven! Can it be?) years ago, which Meath won by, er, a knockout, I suppose.

Tyrone have since made up for the bleak years of the nineties by winning their first two All-Irelands, and are many people’s tip for Sam this year (including that fine GAA man that sets the odds for Ladbrokes, incidentally). However, here your correspondent has to go out on a limb and suggest that Tyrone are now further from the top of the mountain than they may perhaps realise, while Meath are roaring back to the summit with their customary gusto. For all this chat about systems and coaching and what have you, a team is only ever as good as its players, and there is no coaching manual that can turn mortal clay into Peter Canavan, Brian McGuigan or Stephen O’Neill.

In the other corner of the ring, it’s taken Colm Coyle, a Royal folk hero in his own playing days, just one year to restore Meath to the top table. The rise from no-where is as much a part of Meath’s great tradition as rough-housing and the Meath-are-never-bet stuff, and this year might just be another manifestation of that. Fine big boys all over the park, Moyles busting a gut between the fifty yard lines, and a full-forward line that’s now looking as deadly as any in the game, bar Kerry. Add in Graham Geraghty to spring from the bench and that’s some package. Ladbrokes are giving Meath a three point start at 4/5 and a really quite remarkable 9/4 on the outright. An Spailpín’s advice is to fill your boots.

FOCAL SCOIR: I know I’m getting tiresome talking about falling standards in journalism and it seems clear that nobody cares, but this sort of rubbish in today’s Independent really gets my goat. “Croke Park’s decision to cash in on the pulling power of Dublin footballers was rewarded yesterday when their All-Ireland quarter-final against Derry became a virtual sell-out in less than 300 seconds.” It is reasonable to presume from that that 80,000 tickets were sold in five minutes. This is not case, as only 2,000 tickets were sold on ticketmaster, and the rest through usual channels. About the same number and rate as bought tickets for Neil Young in Vicar Street a few years ago. Does this mean that every halfwit hack in the country will now start filing stories about Croke Park’s decision to cash in on the appeal of Canadian singer-songwriters by having a 60x30 handball exhibition between Neil Young and Laughing Lenny Cohen? I weep.





Technorati Tags: Ireland, sport, GAA, Gaelic football, quarter-finals, Sligo, Cork, Meath, Tyrone

Appalling Vista in Store for Croker on Saturday?

As the hype machine rolls on for Round 2 of Dublin v Meath this weekend at Croker, your faithful correspondent thinks it only fair to alert Gaels of what can happen when people get carried away. Last night, the ceremonial first pitch for the Major League baseball game between the home town Los Angeles Dodgers and the visiting New York Mets was thrown in by Los Angeles' newest resident, Posh Spice. Now, if they thought they'd get away with it, what odds on Lyster and the boys having Mrs B flown in to Dublin to thrown in the ball between Mark Ward and Whelo? Even money moving in to odds-on, I'm afraid. God help us all.






Technorati Tags: sport, GAA, Dublin, Meath, Posh Spice

Set Phasers for Slaps - It's Dublin v Meath!

An Spailpín Fánach is normally loath to shine further spotlights on Dublin football games, as they seem quite sufficiently spotlit in conventional media, but I must confess I am looking forward to this weekend’s joust between and Meath and Dublin hugely.

There’s going to be so much in the game, not least as Meath are on the rise one more, while Dublin are very much there to be had. Shane Ryan was outstanding for Dublin in midfield all last year, so Pillar Caffrey has, quite naturally, moved him out of there to fill in for the injured Jason Sherlock at centre-forward. Good old Pillar. With tactical acumen like that, let’s thank God he’s a guard and not in army, eh? The wheezing Ciarán Whelan remains at midfield – don’t Dublin ever drop that fella? Even Mayo drop Brady you know.

The loss of Brian Farrell is a big loss for Meath of course, but they’re in luck as they have parliamentarian Graham Geraghty to put in there instead. Unaccustomed as Geraghty is to this signal honour, and desirous of no personal glory, he has heard his people’s cry and is prepared to serve. Your Spailpín suspects there’s life in the old dog yet, and his wily old head might be a bit much for a gasúr playing fullback on his Championship debut.

Of course, all these things are incidental to the main point of Sunday, which is how the referee, Mr Jimmy McKee of Armagh, will react once the slaps start. There is considerable pressure on the unfortunate referee at the best of times; this is doubled in high profile games involving Dublin, as the Powers that Be like to see Dublin in Croker when there’s no rugger or soccer alternative, but the antics of Clare and Cork last Sunday in Thurles mean that the pressure is now tripled on the unfortunate Mr McKee, torn as he will be by injunctions to let the game flow while also being sternly told that we don’t want the childer frightened as they were in Thurles by “joults,” “dunts,” and other scurrilous acts.

An Spailpín Fánach can only hope that Mr McKee has a notebook the size of the Bible with him. This one is going to feature timber, and plenty of it. Your correspondent still can’t get over the same fixture two years ago when Whelo punched Meath’s Nigel Crawford at the throw-in and only got a yellow card for it. So what is Mr McKee, Fear na Feadóige, to do on Sunday if Whelo once more mistakes Crawford for Mr George Foreman? Of if, Heaven forbid, Crawford’s memory is as good as An Spailpín Fánach’s and he has his eye on the point of Whelo’s impressive chin from the parade on? Crash, bang and wallop, methinks.

Luke Dempsey – rightly – had a cut at RTÉ’s Colm O’Rourke during the week for O’Rourke complaining about games that lacked “passion” and “commitment,” which Dempsey took as synonymous with “timber” and “slaps.” Dempsey had a point of course – you could line up the top philosophers of the ages, from Aristotle and Plato to Thomas Aquinas and Martin Heidigger, and not one of them would be able to tell you what exactly fellas like O’Rourke mean when they draw a distinction between dirty and “manly” play.

An Spailpín Fánach is unsure of what Mr McKee’s philosophical background is, but if Martin Heidigger would be sweating trying to figure out when a punch was actually only a “joult” there isn’t much hope for a civilian. Both these teams are steeped in a hard man culture that stretches back for four or five football generations. When Kevin Heffernan took over as Dublin manager in the 1970s he realised that Dublin were getting pushed around by the country teams, and he put a stop to that. Ten years later, O’Rourke’s own generation of Meathmen realized that they were getting pushed around by Dubs and they had to put a stop to that. And so it escalates until now you have players who don’t know that hitting someone a dirty puck when they’re not looking isn’t the same as being brave, or tough, or hard. And you’ll get that in spades on Sunday.

An Spailpín hopes that it’ll be a good game on Sunday, but he’s far from convinced. It’s my opinion that the first digs will go in early, the referee will bottle it because it’s such a high profile game, and the teams will take their que from that. Investors, prepare for a bull market in bandages by half-five on Sunday. And then we’ll have more fun next week listening to Des Cahill on the radio tsk-tsk-tsk-ing indeterminably, and more old blather all around. The Championship – you have to love it.

FOCAL SCOIR: What sort of hammerheads are running The Sunday Game? We all know that you can get stiffed on any particular weekend and end up with a less than appealing game, but to waste the nation’s time by forcing us to endure Waterford v Kerry is perverse at best. Kerry people will tell you straight out that they don’t give a toss about the game, and I’m not even sure anyone in Waterford even knows it’s on. Why put the nation through it? Not least as the Louth-Wicklow saga is getting so fascinating – why not show that instead? It’s not like they won’t have cameras at the ground, after all. And as for any old blather about equal exposure for the humbler counties, pull the other one Jack, it’s got bells on. When RTÉ show Roscommon v Sligo live on June 17th, as part of their commitment to sharing the limelight, you can all come round to my house and watch me eat my hat. But until then, I say RTÉ are fools for showing Kerry v Waterford when they could show Louth v Wicklow III instead.






Technorati Tags: Sport, GAA, Dublin, Meath