SHANE McGRATH ON SHOWING A BIT OF COP-ON IN A CRISIS
Sport has to be pragmatic about how it responds to brutal realities of crisis
DISTANT, half-heeded stories of terror in China were the beginning. In the three months since, fear, bewilderment, anger, doubt, boredom and anxiety have soused people, leaving them exhausted. A virus came sweeping in from the east and it has stripped lives back to their shells.
That is the point of departure on the way back to freer days.
But those days remain a long way away.
That realisation arrived with a disarming firmness in sport over the past week.
Premier League clubs flounder around in search of an end to the current season. Dates are proposed, tentatively offered before inevitably dissolving.
Rugby is involved in a similar battle against futility – and losing, too. England’s clubs are discussing options for finishing the season, while end-points are also suggested for the European competitions.
It’s as if putting a punctuation point on a suspended campaign will tame the virus.
The GAA leadership has at least eschewed the blind-hope approach – despite the urging of some managers and players.
Their common sense should be recognised, and while the absence of leadership from Croke Park on significant issues has been properly scrutinised in the past, the direction they are showing in this crisis has been very sensible.
This is despite demands from some within the inter-county game for prospective start dates for the Championship to be furnished.
However, this would serve no useful purpose at all, for the very simple reason that nothing can happen without the say-so of the authorities, on the advice of public health officials.
And the medics charged with saving the country from the worst effects of an illness that has ravaged
nAS increasingly hysterical efforts continue in the usual cartoonish places to represent Mick McCarthy as a plague on Irish soccer, it was delightful to see his thoughts shared in these pages yesterday.
McCarthy (right) is a competitor, a true battler whose instinctive readiness to dig in and fight worked against him with some of his selections in his second coming as Ireland manager.
However, he will not be long out of work, even with the English game frozen at present.
He is too experienced, and too good at rejuvenating struggling clubs. much of Europe, including our neighbours in the UK, have consistently refused to give timelines for the lifting of restrictions.
This, of course, is because they cannot, because they do not know what effect even the gradual relaxation of the current lockdown will have on transmission rates of Covid-19.
This is all easy to understand, and it is not beyond the ken of the odd manager or player who wants certainty. They won’t get it, and they should take heed of the leading administrators in their sport, who are adjusting plans accordingly.
Agitating for even a provisional date on which the Championships might begin is ridiculous in an environment where much about this virus, and the extent of its transmission within the population, remains unknown.
The best guess currently is that the Championships may not be played at all in 2020. This is, of course, one more swing in the dark, but it may well be closer to what happens than plucking dates in July and August out of the air to placate a few.
This very sobering possibility is understood by the majority of participants – and fans – throughout sport, and was given impressive voice by the Clare hurler John Conlon on RTÉ radio.
‘We have players whose grandparents live with them. My mother has had cancer twice and hasn’t left the house the last number of weeks,’ he said.
‘It’s very important that everyone’s safety is guaranteed before any Championship game takes place, at club level and inter-county. Until all those guarantees can be met by the GAA, I don’t think any Championship games can be played.’
Cancelled Championships would cause disappointment to millions, but the alternative is taking unjustifiable risks with public health.
His call for guaranteed safety could be questioned, given there are limits to the most rigorous safety procedures.
The wider point is sound, though. It is not possible to rationalise conditions under which games can resume in any sport while there is still a significant threat of the virus taking hold within the community.
There are thousands of jobs dependent on the business of sport, and they deserve to be supported the same way employment imperilled in the retail, hospitality and tourism sectors is being assisted.
A different proposition is a manager cribbing about uncertainty, even if it is a low-level whine.
This crisis continues to bereave families and leave many without the consolation of attending the funerals of loved ones.
The legacies of these frazzling weeks will be felt economically but also in a society weighed down by sadness and grief.
In the priorities of the nation, the fate of the Championships is not a serious consideration.
That is not to minimise sport’s importance, but it has to be understood that the order of people’s concerns has been violently shaken.
The resumption of games will be a wonderful sensation, but no date can be fixed for it.
That disconcerting truth is starting to sink in.