Behind closed doors a runner?

WE have to say it makes a lot of sense to do it the way they have. If they just came out in one fell swoop four or fives weeks ago and told us that this temporary little arrangement – to quote the late, great Albert Reynolds – would be a touch less temporary and a touch larger than they were initial making out people would have found it hell of a lot more difficult to accept. Fair enough nobody really believed it would be all be over by March 29 and nobody really believed the initial two week lockdown period would be last for just that fortnight, but had we been told straight out then what we now know the level of public acceptance might not have been what it needed to be.

Still, though, even accepting that, for a lot of us there’s been this dawning realisation over the last couple of weeks that we really are in for the long haul here. The new normal is just that, the norm indefinitely. The idea that once we got through this initial phase of the crisis that we’d get back to some sort of normality has proven to be wishful thinking at best.

The comments by the Minister for Health, Simon Harris, last weekend seemed to rule out the chances of any sort of regular GAA championship season taking place any time before a vaccine for COVID-19 is found. The Minister’s statement was given teeth on Tuesday afternoon with the government announcing that events requiring license over 5,000 people won’t be considered until the end of August at the earliest. We’re not 100% sure if that applies to sporting events (maybe they are all licensed individually), but even so the intent is clear. There won’t be a championship in the way we understand it this year, simple at that.

The only possible recourse is that there might be games played behind closed doors, but there are a myriad of issues to consider there too. How can you have a socially distant game of football? It’s not at all like professional sports where teams could be quarantined in hotels out of the community. The GAA is the exact opposite of that. Maybe we will be able to get some sort of championship played, but at the moment we just don’t know.