PUT MANNERS ON THEM
If Croke Park really want Dublin to pay for breach, further delay to season is the only answer
IF nothing else, the last 24 hours have shown that lockdown has not dulled Dublin’s renowned decisionmaking in a tight final quarter.
The Dublin County Board’s decision to suspend Dessie Farrell for 12 weeks after at least nine of his players were photographed training together on Wednesday morning in a flagrant breach of Covid-19 regulations came cloaked as an act of contrition.
‘The Dublin senior football management and players recognise that this was a serious error of judgement and apologise unreservedly for their actions,’ yesterday’s statement concluded.
No-one can doubt that their regret for getting caught is genuine, but that is as far as it goes. This was a naked act of self-preservation which Dublin will hope is the end of the affair.
The danger is their hope could be shared by Croke Park. If that is the case, it will amount to an admission that they don’t have the stomach to challenge the culture of entitlement at inter-county level that continues to gnaw at law and order within the association.
For if there is to be a true reckoning for the betrayal of trust, the reputational damage to the GAA, and the mockery that has been made of its leadership, it will not
“What would be the point in fining them?”
be found in Dessie Farrell falling on his sword — not a steel one, mind, rather a plastic one you might find in a joke shop.
This move by Farrell could mean that the GAA’s investigation, which remains ongoing, won’t now go after the players identified in the photographs — Brian Fenton, Brian Howard and Jonny Cooper among them — for training on a GAA pitch that was supposed to be out of bounds.
The county board could also now avoid queries about how much they knew, how many more pods were in place, and for how long?
But if this GAA investigation does not extend beyond the usual questions to the usual suspects, and the prospect of the usual sanctions, then nothing changes.
We have seen this dance already, most recently with Cork and Down, whose managers took the hit and whose county boards expressed their concern.
And the GAA wonders why it is left ‘with frustration and extreme disappointment’ once again — it keeps doing the same thing over and over.
What lessons will be learned by banning a manager from a sideline for 12 weeks?
Should the GAA push on with its investigation, what morality is there in taking action against players whose presence at a training session was requested in the first place?
Or for that matter, what logic is there in imposing a fine on the richest county board in the country?
The answers to the above are none, none and none.
There has to be another way, one that involves medicine so bitter that no-one would dare have the stomach to prescribe it for themselves.
Ultimately only the GAA can undo the harm caused and ensure that this never happens again.
As downright awful as this public health crisis has been, it has shown the GAA in a consistently positive light.
And not just in its grassroots role as a community support network, but as a leadership that showed intuition in being ahead of the curve in doing the right thing at the right time, most notably when it intervened last autumn to suspend all club activity after the evidence showed that post-county final celebrations had led to spikes in infections.
It did so again recently when its Covid Advisory Group counselled against seeking a return to collective inter-county training in March because of the levels of infection in the country. Instead, the GAA bided time to allow for that winonly dow to open on April 19.
And on hearing the government’s decision to allow play resume, Croke Park responded with a warning that any breach of collective training prior to April 19 would not be tolerated.
‘Breaches in this context will not be dealt with under our own rules but would likely put the broader plan to return to activity in serious jeopardy,’ warned GAA president Larry McCarthy and director general Tom Ryan in a letter to members on Tuesday night.
If that warning was met within hours with the most casual of dismissals, let’s not feign shock.
There is no justification for Dublin’s breach of the training regulations but the context is that they are hardly on their own.
Proving it is a very different thing.
You can be certain Croke Park is aware of the anecdotal chatter doing the rounds which is one of the reasons why it made that plea this week.
And that is why it needs to act now in a way that goes beyond delivering standardised punishments that are totally ineffective. What Dublin appear to have done — and others continue to do — is challenge Croke Park’s authority in the knowledge that the time is never going to match the crime.
The GAA needs to strike back against this inter-county mindset that’s defined by a selfish management culture and characterised by the attitude that rules apply only to the little people. This is the GAA’s problem child.
It is a culture that took the GAA to a breaking point in the clubcounty fixture war that only found some resolution in the development of a split-season model.
Now, yet again in the midst of a crisis, an opportunity has presented itself for Croke Park to remind inter-county managers that dirty deeds are not always done dirt cheap.
If on Tuesday night Croke Park believed that a breach of its training regulations was something which would ‘jeopardise’ the resumption of the inter-county season, then by yesterday morning it should have been steeled by the way in which those words have been thrown back in its face.
This is the first test of McCarthy’s presidency. It is one that
“There is no justification for this breach”
must not be shirked. The consequences of not being true on his word will cast a shadow over the governance of the association that will not leave for a long time.
It has to be Croke Park’s move next and it has to be one that cuts deep.
The GAA should move immediately to announce that the latest breach of their rules will lead to a further delay to the resumption of inter-county training until the beginning of May.
There is no better way to drive home the shame to an offender than to see others having to pay for their selfishness.
It would be tough on those counties who have observed the regulations, but it would also mean that all those teams who have successfully avoided a camera lens will pay in kind for their recklessness.
True, such action would take a wrecking ball to the GAA’s already challenged plans to have a meaningful inter-county season and would most likely wipe out the Allianz Leagues.
It would be a huge price for the entire inter-county community to pay.
The irony that this misery will have been brought to their door by the most successful, well-resourced team in the land will not be lost on those counties whose ambitions these days do not stray beyond the League or Tailteann Cup, partly as a result of Dublin’s extreme dominance.
But if the GAA want Dublin to pay for the huge damage they have visited on the association, forcing everyone else to pick up the tab for their extravagant ambition would bring a lot more shame to the champions than an evening spent in the company of the Central Hearings Committee or the mock punishment of their manager.
In the process, the GAA leadership would emerge with real authority, reminding everyone that where they lead, the rest must ultimately follow or pay the consequences.
If not, then what credibility will be attached to the anticipated beefed-up return-to-play protocols that are expected to be announced shortly by Croke Park?
And delaying the start of the season three weeks would also mean that children will get back on the GAA fields before inter-county players.
Right now, that feels so appropriate.
In light of recent events, they suddenly seem like the adults in the room and those blushing in blue are the ones in the naughty corner.
It’s time to put manners on them.
“GAA should move to delay training return”