The show must go on
Players want to compete for the public good and the GAA itself, says Kiely
WHATEVER unfolds f rom the forthcoming hurling Championship may, in time, come with an asterisk attached – and such a scenario grates with John Kiely.
It is Championship, not as he has ever known or seen it, but it is Championship nevertheless.
Yes, it will be played in deepest winter with a yellow ball in empty stadia, but stripped bare it will still be the game the Limerick manager knows and loves.
‘Within our camp and I’m sure within every other camp, there’s a ferocious determination to get on with this competition,’ says Kiely, ahead of Sunday’s Munster SHC clash with Clare.
‘Our preparations haven’t been diminished in any way. The quality of training hasn’t been diminished in any way. The quality of competition for places on the team hasn’t diminished in any way,’ Kiely insisted.
‘Players want to play this competition. We want to play the 2020 hurling Championship very much
“Nobody being at these events is anti-sport ”
and I think the association has mirrored that determination over the last number of months in terms of its determination to play the competition.
‘We haven’t seen a Championship cancelled in the history of the association and a virus hopefully isn’t going to stop us from completing this year’s Championship, be Limerick in it or not in it.
‘Whoever is in the closing stages, best of luck to them but we want to do this for the association and for the wider public out there,’ said Kiely, speaking prior to last night’s Government decision to give the All-Ireland Championships the green light to proceed, against the backdrop of heightened restrictions that will be imposed this week.
But if the Championship itself will be undiminished for players and managers, the fact it will most probably be played in its entirety behind closed doors cannot but impact the spectacle.
Kiely concedes that the very idea of games without fans is ‘anti-sport’.
‘I don’t think you’d have to travel too far down the street to meet somebody who misses sport or misses sport as it was in terms of watching events.
‘The Premier League without all the fans watching soccer matches, Liverpool winning their title and no fans at the games, horse racing taking place with nobody at it, boxing matches with nobody at it, golf events with nobody at it, tennis events across the world with nobody at it, our own Gaelic games with nobody at it.
‘It is anti- sport. Sport is all about the community. It is about getting together, celebrating, enjoying, competing in it, competing with their lives for it.
‘We have missed all of that, but we just can’t have it right now unfortunately. That is just the way it is.
‘When we do get it back next year, we will never forget the value of it, I can tell you that much.
‘For the moment we have to live without it, that is it.
‘It will be different, but we have to accept the fact that it is going to be different.’
And it will look different, too. Croke Park’s introduction of a yellow sliotar to ensure greater visibility in floodlit games has not been received well, with Galway star Joe Canning, speaking last week, l abelling it a ‘ strange decision.’
Kiely goes one step further, insisting the move is a ‘crazy’ one.
‘We all knew the reason why helmets were introduced, because people were l osing eyes and teeth.
‘It was very clear cut. I have never heard anybody complain about the sliotar up until this point and you know it’s been introduced now and we just have to get one with it.
‘I just don’t have any real understanding as to why this decision was made. I don’t believe there was a wide enough conversation had across the association about it either.
‘It’s a huge change to be making to change the colour of our ball that we have been using for over 120, 130 years.
“I just think it’s crazy,’ added the Limerick boss.
Also away from the norm is this Sunday’s clash with Clare which amount to two games for the price of one, as it doubles as a Munster quarter-final and the Allianz League final.
‘The context of the game for us is that it’s the quarter-final of the Munster Championship.
‘Of course it’s the League final as well but that wasn’t in our decision-making. We just have to roll with whatever the authorities have laid out. It’s not the most ideal of situations; it’s not the way we would have liked it from the outset.
‘This is just exceptional circumstances. They (GAA) have duties I’m sure as an organisation to their sponsors, to complete the competition where possible. It’s the quarter-final of the Munster hurling championship. It’s the league final. That’s what’s at stake. That’s what we’re playing for. The rights and wrongs of it are not for me to say.’
“It’s a huge change after 130 years”