“Well, what do you think of … ?”
Mary McAleese's decision to step down from her position as Chairperson of the Steering Group on Integration rocked the GAA Photo: ©INPHO/Morgan Treacy
On the Monday afternoon after major Carlow hurling matches the phone is almost guaranteed to ring and the voice on the other side, a man from the deep South, will open the conversation with “Well! What do you think now?” While I offer my honest opinion on the previous day’s action, the previous day’s selectorial decisions, the caller is often more strident in his views and his offerings would make wonderfully entertaining copy only for the fact that those said strident views would, on occasion (on many occasions!) stray across into the realm of possible libel!
On visits to the shop or on a ramble around town I often meet people who ask, “well, what do you think of …”, that ‘of’ the parent of a myriad of subjects.
This past seven days has had more than its usual share of high profile ‘what do you think ofs’ and so this week’s column is going to address those various questions or, on occasion, in typical Irish fashion, answer the question with a question.
Well, I was surprised that she resigned but not one bit surprised that the Integration process hit a major speed bump, always felt 2027 was too ambitious, too much, too soon.
No, here’s a question for you, two actually. Why was the 2013 All-Ireland Senior Hurling Final replay played on a Saturday evening? And why was the 2024 Carlow Senior Football Championship final played on a Saturday?
I’ll tell you why. In 2012 the All-Ireland hurling final ended in a draw and the replay was fixed for the Sunday the All-Ireland Ladies football finals were to be played. The ladies games were put back a week to totally understandable dissatisfaction. The following year the All-Ireland Hurling Final again ended in a draw but the 2013 replay was fixed for the Saturday for the first time ever so as the Ladies football finals would not this time be disturbed. A Central Council meeting that year had it ‘written in stone’ that any subsequent replays would be on a Saturday so as the ladies would have their Super Sunday. Hardly the act of a misogynist association?
In 2024 the Carlow Senior Football Championship final ended in a draw, the expectation being that the replay would be fixed for a Sunday. It wasn’t. It was played Saturday. Why? Because then GAA Chairman Jim Bolger honoured a commitment to Linda Kenny of the Camogie Board that the ladies would have Netwatch Cullen Park for their Super Sunday of Championship finals. Hardly the act of a misogynist association?
Wasn’t really sure, knew it wasn’t complimentary but had to look it up. An online definition is ‘a person who deeply dislikes, mistrusts or hates women.’ Do you really believe the majority of GAA members fit that description?
Think that doubling the figure the men get to suggest the women will have to get the same is a little bit disingenuous. Yes, finances will be a huge problem but as it stands do you think the same amount of money is spent on the Limerick men’s football team as there is on their hurlers. Or that the Kerry hurlers are on a financial par with the Kingdom’s footballers?
I’m glad you asked me that question. Was listening to a hurling match on Clare FM last Sunday and at half-time they were discussing integration. Their analyst Tommy Guilfoyle, a former Clare hurler, a man deeply involved with his club, has a wonderful turn of phrase and a keen intellect. When debating the merits of the ‘black card’ during the interval of a league match in Ennis Tommy gave his ‘take’. “I’d query the wording, most especially the ‘clear goal scoring opportunity’. I mean we have a few Junior B forwards and if the sliotar was bobbling on the line they’d somehow manage to miss. Then you have Tony Kelly. TK could get a ball abroad on the sideline, three men around him, and seconds later he’d have left them in his slipstream and hung the sliotar in the roof of the net. What’s ‘clear’ to one man is not ‘clear’ to another!”
To get back to last Sunday, Tommy was again incisive. “I would have thought that the best thing to do all along was to first integrate the LGFA and the Camogie Association. Now, I’ll tell you, I don’t know about any other county, but here in Clare that would be a big step because in my experience ‘compromise’ is not a word in either Association’s dictionary!”
Do you know the story of William Webb Ellis? He was a student in an English school and one day out playing soccer he got bored with the ‘no hands’ game, so much so that he picked up the ball and ran with it and thereby invented a new game. They called it rugby after the school With this ‘six steps’ rule maybe it’s an opportunity to invent a new hurling game, call it ‘egg and spoon’, run six steps, tap it on your spoon, run six more steps, hop it off the ground, six steps more, lay it off to another runner.
I was at the Monaghan hurling finals last Sunday and the referees consistently blew ‘steps’. The players quickly learned to keep it to four. At inter-county, the referees turn a blind eye, so this new rule would only be legalising what is already in place. Only now six will become eight.
I’d get rid of it altogether, the name of the game is hurling, use your hurl to pass it! The man that receives a hand-pass who gets bottled up will have to try use his hurl so why not just outlaw the hand-pass entirely? A lot of teams are already using the one-handed stick pass patented by Ballygunner’s Paddy Leavy. Speaking of Ballygunner I was down in Walsh Park for one of their games in the Waterford championship and put a count on their use of hurl and hand. Not counting puck-outs, frees or line-balls, only ticking when a ‘Gunner in possession ‘used’ the ball, the tallies for each half were uncannily similar, 91 (hurl)-15 (hand) in the opening half, 85-14 on the change-over. A final tally of 170-29 shows the All-Ireland club champions put their ‘timber’ to good use.
Do you know they have that rule in camogie? Saw a Kerry girl convert a line-ball against Carlow in the County Grounds. And do you know that in camogie, a line-ball inside your own 45m line can be taken out of the hand? It’s the same with a defensive free, if you are fouled in possession. Those innovations really help keep the game flowing. Apart from the elite levels how many line-balls in hurling and camogie are scuffed, leading to yet another unseemly ‘ruck’?
Now as to the ‘two-pointer’, it was experimented with in the league many years ago, our own Pat Coady was one of the first to rack up 0-2. It’s a fantastic skill with Joe Canning bringing it to a fine art, Aussie Gleeson a dab hand at them too. Seems Galway’s Joe Salmon years and years ago was so good at the ‘cut’ that he would even take frees in that manner.
However, I’m not in favour of applying ‘artistic impression’ to scores, a point is a point is a point. Why should a ‘cut’ with no one marking you be worth more than a point shot over the shoulder where you had to shorten your grip to avoid a hook and adjust your strike to evade a frontal block?
I once put together a chart in which each county’s championship scores from line-balls was tallied. Kilkenny, who were hoovering up All-Ireland’s at the time, were surprisingly low on the list. Or maybe it was not so surprising as the black and amber’s pragmatic approach would have prioritised making best use of the line-ball and that did not entail gifting possession to the opposition with wides from hit-and-hope cuts.
Never before in the over 100 year history of the championship has the final been played at any time other than a Sunday afternoon. Never before in the 100 year history of the championship has the final been played in anything other than daylight.
Now, because TG4 want to show it, we have Saturday Night Lights. It could add to the occasion, it will certainly be different but the traditionalist in me would prefer a Sunday setting, not least for the babes in arms, the toddlers who are part and parcel of an afternoon county final but who on a cold dark Saturday night four days shy of October would be more comfortable at home in bed!
