Shame to see GAA’s minnows on the outside looking in again
IT WASN’T just the red carpet or glitz and glamour on show at the Convention Centre in Dublin that was drawn from Oscars night — the tail-end of the live television show for the All-Stars had that same feel when they skim through the minor categories at the end of the Hollywood broadcast.
You know the one: shots of the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject or Best Dance Direction, rushed through at such speed it’s as if someone hit the fast forward button on the remote.
Part of the show, and yet not quite part of the show.
RTÉ’s clip covering the 45 players honoured for their own excellence in the three national hurling championship competitions outside the Liam MacCarthy Cup lasted 39 seconds. Inexcusably, there wasn’t even a graphic of the winning team selections in the Christy Ring, Nicky Rackard or Lory Meagher Cups, just Ger Canning’s classically cultivated tones name-checking the Hurler of the Year in each category.
And so 42 players on stage had their big moment — and yet didn’t have their big moment.
Part of the show, and not quite part of the show.
For those watching at home, the only three who it was actually possible to put a face to a name were Carlow’s Richard Coady (Christy Ring Cup), Derry’s Gerald Bradley (Nicky Rackard Cup) and former Antrim star Liam Watson, moonlighting in style for Warwickshire in the Lory Meagher Cup.
At a time when there is so much talk about growing the game abroad — Galway, Dublin, Tipperary and Clare all head to Boston soon as part of the AIG Fenway Hurling Classic, with the official PwC All Stars hurling trip heading to Singapore in December — not enough is done to recognise those generally deemed off Broadway on this island.
The ‘Champion 15’ selections are a great idea. It’s such a positive step to recognise the achievement of those outside the Liam MacCarthy Cup, and a deserved honour for those who produce a standard of excellence away from the traditional big summer days which hog the spotlight.
Including them as part of AllStars night is about valuing them on the same stage as the Joe Cannings of this world. Fully deserved and well-intended.
It’s not much to ask then, surely, to list the players’ names. Or ask RTÉ to put a Sunday Game style team graphic together combining names and faces, rather than treating it in a blink-of-an-eye fashion like some Irving G Thalberg Memorial Award, the fabled head of MGM studios lending his name to an honorary statuette presented in periodic fashion.
When the draw for the 2018 AllIreland Championships went out live on RTÉ recently, the entire Football Championship was featured. As usual, the GAA communities in London and New York had their brief moment in the sun as the summer was all mapped out.
Yet only 10 hurling counties featured in the televised hurling draw. The top 10. The elite. To anyone looking in from outside, the national game might as well have not existed outside traditional boundaries.
It was particularly stark given that next year’s Liam MacCarthy Cup features 16 teams. Apart from a radical new round robin for the five top teams in Leinster and Munster in 2018, a third ‘Tier 2’ group feeds in to the All-Ireland series and features six counties: Laois, Westmeath, Meath, Carlow, Kerry and Antrim.
Imagine completing two-thirds of a competition draw? Hosting the FA Cup draw but saying, ‘ah sure we’ll add in the Championship and lower league teams later’.
Same for all those ‘Champion 15’ counties.
Six days later, the draws for those competitions were released separately.
Why couldn’t the Champion 15 selections be announced along with the All-Star selections? Instead, news of those selections only filtered out mid-afternoon last Friday, just hours before the awards night itself.
At the moment, the GAA is battling the perception that it caters too much to the game’s elite, that not enough thought or focus or attention is given to those putting time, energy and resources into bridging the gap. Particularly in hurling, where the gap is more pronounced.
One big positive for next year’s Tier 2 competition is that the final is bracketed in the new master fixture list along with the Leinster hurling final, a massive plus in terms of promotion and profile.
Just one problem. Anybody know the prize for the competition?
A ‘Tier 2’ group was part of a previous Hurling Development Committee proposal all the way back in 2012. It’s not as if this has been suddenly sprung upon Croke Park. Yet a trophy name has yet to be decided on.
Roll up, roll up, for the Cup with no name.
It’s hardly going to inspire the next generation of hurling-obsessed children in those six counties and more.
‘So, Ruairí, what inspired you to dedicate yourself to the game as a kid in the glens of Antrim?
‘Dreaming of lifting the Cup with no name, Marty.’
Part of the show, and yet not quite part of the show.
A 39-second clip covered 45 players Roll up, roll up for the Cup with no name