THE PRESS BOX: ‘Rogue’ trainers have left a stain on GAA’s ethos
NOW that the nation’s adult inter-county GAA teams have resumed training, including those from Sligo, everything is alright with the world.
Except, of course, if one happens to live in Myanmar or India (or the numerous other places on this burning, depleting planet where there’s war, injustice, extreme poverty or illness).
With a GAA schedule to look forward to, some level of normality and perhaps attendances (even reduced) in the coming months, there is a lot to be optimistic about.
Given the general adherence to the restrictions (implemented to reduce the spread of a worldwide pandemic not to control the population) and the ongoing vaccine rollout (disjointed as it has been), the tunnel is getting shorter and the light at the end of it is getting brighter.
Does it really matter then that when lockdown was at its strictest and county panels were NOT ALLOWED to gather for training in pods, mini-groups or large groups, under any circumstances, that players from Cork, Down, Dublin and Monaghan decided they were above the law.
More importantly, the respective team managers thought so too. Also, either the County Board chiefs of these four ‘rogue’ counties were either in the dark about what was going on or turned a blind eye.
I’m so relieved that Sligo’s various panels didn’t get caught up in all this. Thankfully there were no whispers – or social media evidence – of training pods at Streedagh, Oxfield or IT Sligo.
With Sligo not amongst the guilty counties, I didn’t need to have any awkward conversations with Sligo Senior Gaelic football team boss Tony McEntee, hurling manager Padraig Mannion or Sligo GAA chairman Seán Carroll.
Does it matter, indeed? The
MAJOR ROLE: GAA president Larry McCarthy.
players and panels who trained were outdoors and, as far as we are aware, all free of Covid-19.
These are inter-county players, ‘elite’ sportspeople (although not specifically paid a wage for their hours of input) and full-time ambassadors for what all that is right and true about being Irish.
So what if the rest of us had to abide by regulations, including numerous other sporting codes. For example, there are good people involved in basketball who can’t remember the last time they could go about their chosen pursuit.
As has been pointed out regularly to me, how is an amateur soccer player, rugby player, martial artist, gymnast, athlete or tennis player any different from an inter-county GAA competitor? They each love their sport, they each put in the hours, they each live and work in the community.
As columnist Eugene McHale rightly pointed out in these pages last week, only the most severest of sanctions – outlined and set in stone at the very start – would have kept the rogue counties in check.
Break the training ban and risk watching on from the sidelines. End. Of. Story.
GAA president Larry McCarthy, who comes across as a well-meaning and intelligent man, has issued a letter to Juvenile coaches. In this letter he reiterates the GAA’s fundamental message, that ‘club is core’. Grassroots is everything for the GAA but why, then, has the intercounty section of this organisation become such an unruly beast?
Yes, inter-county is the highest level that the country’s best GAA players can aspire to.
Yes, it is these skilful, entralling contests that attracts the biggest attendances, the widest TV audiences, the greatest share of sponsorship/grants.
Yes, inter-county players put in an effort that is comparable to that of sports professionals.
But unless we’re careful, the intercounty machine will become the be-all and end-all of GAA. Worryingly for the GAA, it probably already has.
When we have to talk about budget caps on County Boards’ spend on inter-county teams, reduced training sessions, limits on squad sizes/ backroom teams, then there is major a problem for the country’s most successful – and amateur – sporting organisation.