The Kerryman (South Kerry Edition)
Standard of play the real blight
THE media has been full of the payment to managers controversy over the last few weeks while, at the same time, the game itself suffers.
The powers that be in Croke Park are like a government that will create a story to take your eye off the ball. Like I said before, there is enough austerity going on in the country without the GAA starting to roll back the years with talks of registration and audit boards and such.
They will have us back in the days of the famous ban and vigilante style committees if we are not careful. I would argue that the executive boards and subcommittee structure is big enough so let’s move on. The clubs and counties know how to finance their teams so let them do so as they see fit.
If anyone wants to tell me that a manager will get a trophy or a county title or, indeed, an All-ireland title, simply because he is getting paid is living in another world. Good managers will improve structures, give good advice to clubs for future years and may even improve the juvenile area of a club.
He might even improve players twenty or thirty percent, but no matter who that manager is he will not deliver without the raw material, which is the player.
Now a good manager will have a look at this squad and he will try to analyse how he will improve it. Very good managers may even come in and move players from the positions on the field they played in since juvenile level. This is something I used love to do and believe me some players were delighted I saw them in other positions.
It was like a player getting a new lease of life. If you started in an area of the field as a juvenile you could play in the same position under a number of managers and all of a sudden a manager comes in and sees you in a new role. That can lift a whole squad, suddenly there are players looking over their shoulders – the old way is being revised.
A manager that improves a team does a good job. Some managers are luckier than others. Take competitive draws: you could avoid the strong teams and find yourself in the county semi-final with the good teams knocking each other out. That’s the lucky manager and I believe there are even a few of them operating at county level.
When I hear clubs and officers talk of the great sense of community that the GAA has I smile. If all this great sense of pride in the club and community exists, why then would they want to go outside of the community and parish to find someone to train their football team?
An outsider would have a different view and wouldn’t be influenced by family and such perhaps? But that should be the job of the officers of the club to oversee the running of the club and the manager of the football team to concentrate on the playing of the game.
If the people entrusted to run the game from Croke Park want to leave a legacy they should look no further than the game that is being served up. I watched the Sigerson Cup Final last week. Now college game used to be great games. This latest one was awful.
If Padraic Duffy and the lads in Croke Park want to talk about the role of managers they should talk to them, not about being reimbursed for their time, but about the type of football they are coaching and bringing to the football fields of Ireland. Not about administrative things that are loaded with hypocrisy.
The game needs examination, everything else is immaterial if that doesn’t happen. And again, talking about money, where were the administrators of the club, county and Croke Park when young Duggan, the Cork player, was injured and out of work and out of pocket?
It took a letter to the national media by the player to highlight his plight, which leads me on to probably the most important plea of this week and that is for the Curran family of Valentia Island. Former Kerry player Paul Curran is facing the biggest game of this young life.
Paul played football at all grades with Kerry and he went on to play club football in Dublin. He now needs an operation urgently. There is a huge cost for this surgery. I know that at the KerryDonegal National League game permission for a bucket collection has been granted.
Perhaps, a Dublin-kerry charity game could be arranged for the family or if every club in the county and in the Dublin county board could seek financial help it would show that true community spirit of the GAA.
It has the mechanism to organise and if anyone has ideas I’m sure that the Valentia GAA club or the Credit Union in Cahersiveen will let clubs know how the appeal is being co-ordinated.
Times like these are the real test of the GAA.