GOODBYE TO THE HILL

EMPTY SPACES AT CHAMPIONSHIP MATCHES ARE A DIRECT RESULT OF THE GAA BURYING ITS HEAD IN THE SAND OVER THE DISASTROUS SPLIT SEASON

IN 1985, after 99 years in business, Coca-Cola, the world’s most iconic drinks brand, decided to change its secret formula for making the beverage.

There was a massive kickback and the company shipped huge criticism. So much so that after 79 days, they reverted to the original formula.

Subsequently, the company went from strength to strength and is now the world’s leading soft drink manufacturer.

Sound familiar? Of course it does.

In their wisdom, the GAA decided to change the formula of the jewel in their crown: the inter-county championships.

They squeezed their inter-county programme into six months despite playing more games and gave up the months of August and September when sports like soccer and rugby were at the start of their seasons.

And there has been kickback. The obvious one is attendances have dropped, whereas the trend is the other way in other sports. The Irish women’s rugby and soccer teams had record crowds recently.

There were 50,000 in the Aviva Stadium for Leinster’s Champions Cup quarter-final win over La Rochelle, while full-house signs are the order of the day regularly in the League of Ireland.

Sixty thousand empty seats at last Sunday’s Dublin v Meath clash at Croke Park was an embarrassment. Surely, like the Coca-Cola top brass, the GAA ought to act.

Sadly, GAA officials are not like those executives. They are tone deaf, oblivious to the criticism from fans and ex-players. They seem hell-bent on retaining this new formula, which is sucking whatever life is left out of the championship.

Jarlath Burns has shown himself to be a proactive president. He sees problems and looks to address them. The Football Review Committee is a case in point.

BURST

It is time for him to be proactive on the split season. I welcome his remarks on GAAGO’s new Ratified discussion forum when he talked about the possibility of staging the All-Ireland finals in September again.

A few home truths have to be addressed and a few egos need to be burst. An admission must be made that they have got it wrong. They have cannibalised the championship and are destroying it.

I guess you are bored by this stage with my endless rants about the split season.

So, for the rest of the column, I will focus on the first two weekends of action from the provincial football championships.

The Leinster championship is a shambles. This is old hat – it has been an ongoing story for years. Maybe there is a case for throwing Dublin out of Leinster, though I cannot imagine any other province wanting them.

Rather than looking for a gimmicky solution, perhaps we should reflect on why Dublin’s dominance in senior football isn’t repeated in hurling, nor indeed at either under-17 or under-20 level in football.

Dublin aren’t the problem. It is the 10 other counties who are unable to get their act together and be competitive.

In defence of the Leinster championship, it has provided a surprise result: Wicklow’s defeat of Westmeath, as well as the best match to date: Kildare v Wicklow.

It was a cracker, while the Louth v Wexford tie featured some of the best passages of kicking I have seen in championship football for a long time.

Last weekend, I warned about the dangers of trying to create a level playing field in sport. In theory, it is a good idea, but it doesn’t really work. Inevitably, there are still going to be hammerings.

Here’s an example from the tiered hurling championship in which teams of supposedly similar ability are grouped together.

In the Christy Ring Cup, Kildare and London each had 11-point wins over Sligo and Tyrone, respectively. In the Lory Meagher, Longford hammered Lancashire by 18 points and in the Nicky Rackard, Mayo trashed Monaghan by 22 points. Level playing field my arse!

I know this is sacrilege and was written ahead of last night’s game between Donegal and Derry, but maybe the Ulster championship is not all it is cracked up to be.

Monaghan v Cavan was the pick of the bunch so far, even if two-thirds of the game was a bore fest. Cavan didn’t score their first point from play until the 40th minute. And although they had the advantage of the wind in the first half, Monaghan spent a lot of time playing the ball back to goalkeeper Rory Beggan, who got Man of The Match on the BBC.

The mind boggles.

WASTED

Fermanagh and Armagh was just as one-sided as Dublin v Meath, although there were fewer column inches wasted on it. It was men-against-boys stuff.

After 55 minutes, Fermanagh had scored 0-3. Serious analysis of Armagh is out of the question because the opposition was so poor.

Down v Antrim was awful. It was modern football at its worst: recycle, reset, pass over, pass back. When co-commentator Philly McMahon starting talking about ‘offensive transition’, I gave up. I realised I had lost 60-plus minutes of my life which I would never get back.

While it is pointless to analyse Dublin’s performance, it did occur to me that maybe Brian Fenton is the conductor who keeps it all ticking over. In his absence last Sunday, they spluttered. I’m sure this did not go unnoticed in either Kerry or Derry.

The Connacht championship games in London and