Victims in a quest for the Holy Grail
This Championship has been a revelation, but hurling cannot lose Ryan and McGrath
THE first time the Holy Father drove by me, I had a good look up at the man. The second time he whizzed by I had another look. Third time I was still looking. Fourth time, I had a quick glance over my shoulder. After that, the fifth and sixth and seventh times, I wasn’t too bothered to be honest. When he came into view the 10th time, I did wonder... has this man no feckin’ home to go to?
It had been a long day in Drogheda. We’d been up at dawn that morning in 1979, and parked our cars five or six miles from the field. And we knew we had a long wait before John Paul ll descended from the heavens into the same field.
I was part of the Skryne GFC body of men. Our nearest and never our dearest of neighbours, Walterstown GFC, had the job of stewarding the field in which we parked our cars.
We understood at that point in the day that there was a God. We marched on. We were given yellow sashes, and told to keep marching, and we weren’t told to stop until we arrived at the central intersection in the field made up of 20 or 30 paddocks of people.
We knew we’d a good chance of seeing him in his speedy Popemobile. After the mass, after his snooze, after his kindly chinning of the IRA and the madmen on the other side, we knew we were in prime position.
We just didn’t expect to see him every 10 minutes. ‘Go home, will ya!’
Too much of a good thing is the only genuine complaint that can also be laid at the feet of the new hurling Championship.
It wasn’t heaven sent, like John Paul in ’79 and Francis this summer. In fact, the hurling Championship which has consumed every last person in the GAA — and left us all gobsmacked like 10 years-old kids — has been right beneath our noses all this time. It only needed a good smelling. This summer has presented us with the greatest feast of a Championship anyone can ever remember, hurling or football, but there was no need to wait until 2018. We could have devoured all of this magical hurling any year.
And not only is it thrilling us Sunday after Sunday, but it is also smartly road-mapping the route forward for football to present itself in a more legitimate and orderly fashion.
Hurling has Liam MacCarthy, and after him it’s got Joe McDonagh and Christy Ring and Lory Meagher .... a cup and a place for everyone.
All football has to do now is trot out the names of some of its own legends, and allow all teams to play fiercely-competitive games against counties of their own abilities – perhaps, for starters, the stomped upon Tommy Murphy Cup might even be taken out of the cupboard and receive a shining up from someone’s coat sleeve?
There is a real sense that the GAA has turned a corner in recent months. Nearly everyone is happy. Supporters, accountants, and playstressed ers. The only tiny issue is that some teams have had to play four games in consecutive weeks in the Leinster and Munster Championships, while others got one Sunday off in between.
That quibble, and a noisy clearing of the throat amongst Leinster teams as they wondered why there is a large trapdoor beneath their Championship group, and the tiniest hole in the ground beneath Munster’s group.
Threatening all of Leinster teams with relegation (and sending Offaly down to the Joe McDonagh Cup next season) and going softly on Munster was clearly a significant error, which should and can be amended.
But, that one miscalculation aside, we have nothing else to do but cheer this hurling championship — and we haven’t even arrived at the Leinster and Munster finals.
However, the all-business nature of the hurling Championships has heaped pressure on the game’s managers. As if they were not out enough to begin with, the poor divils.
By failing to win one game in four attempts there is now a thunderous air in Tipperary, and their manager Michael Ryan is going to need considerable help to hold onto his position.
A declaration of their faith in him by the County Board is a starting point if he wishes to hold down his position on the sideline, but Tipp folk will now sit back (after hitting the summer dump earlier than they have done in the last 20 years) and they’re going to have a lot of talking to do.
In Waterford, Derek McGrath has already intimated that he will walk the long walk after five years, whether people want him to stay or go.
Both might be victims of the Championship excitedly playing out in front of us. Both are good men and excellent managers, but the stakes have never looked greater than in recent weeks, and every county has had to double down.
High stakes always have bigger winners and bigger losers. The GAA now has to be very careful not to watch too many outstanding managers being run out of town by people who have nothing else to do with their time.