Social distancing here to stay

HERE were two states of the nation addresses on Sunday evening. One of which was a rambling fiasco that sowed more confusion than it clarified. The other of which was cogent, eloquent and fairly comprehensive. In both style and substance John Horan’s appearance of The Sunday Game licked Boris Johnson’s address from his office in Downing Street. Horan’s remarks gave real clarity to GAA people on what to expect in the foreseeable future, doubling down and in lock step with the guidelines released by the Association earlier in the week. It wasn’t the case for Mr Horan, as it was for the Prime Minister, that somebody had to go out the following day and clear up the mess of his making. No, Mr Horan was on point and on message.

Still, though, there was one thing Mr Horan did say that caught our ear and strikes us as something of a hostage to fortune.

The former Dublin chairman said that he “can’t see” football and hurling returning while social distancing remains in place. The consequences of that, if followed to its logical conclusion, are potentially monumental. As things stand we have no idea when social distancing will cease to be part of our daily lives. Social distancing probably will be until an effective treatment or a vaccine can be found. It’s not at all beyond the realms of possibility that neither of which will be found before this time next year. What Mr Horan said potentially rules out any Gaelic games this year and beyond that it could mean that we won’t have a championship or club games either next year. Or the year after... or the year after that.

We can understand the need for caution and the primacy of protecting people’s heath, but that doesn’t seem a sustainable position to us. Forget about the fact that most of us would quite like to see a game or two, players will want to play too eventually. An indefinite hiatus doesn’t strike us as at all plausible.