FANS VOTING WITH THEIR FEET

THE GAA NEEDS TO COP ITSELF ON AND START LISTENING TO PEOPLE BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE

TRUST me, I didn’t plan to write about GAAGO, The Sunday Game or the crazy split season today.

Everybody I talk to agrees with my views.

So it is very frustrating that the GAA, an organisation which is supposed to reflect the views of its grassroots, is so out of touch.

Should that read ‘stakeholders’ in the wake of Jarlath Burns’ interview with Claire Byrne? The what?

It is obvious that the GAA authorities, particularly those unelected personnel who are in charge at headquarters, are not just out of touch with the members, but in total denial.

It is said that ignoring the signs is a good way to end up at the wrong destination. Never has a truer word been spoken.

Too many of the key decisions made by the GAA in recent times have been short-sighted, poorly thought out and most definitely heading to the wrong destination.

For example, the condensed nature of the inter-county season means our elite players are being flogged to death.

Worryingly, apart from the Munster hurling championship, there has been a noticeable drop in attendance figures. Why?

There are too many matches squeezed into too tight a period, too many meaningless games and too much expense involved. After all, we are in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis. People must make choices about how they spend their money.

Take, for example, the dilemma facing the wider Kerry GAA family last weekend.

On Saturday afternoon, the Kerry camogie team took on Tipperary in the Munster intermediate final, the Munster senior ladies’ football final between Kerry and Cork was on in Mallow, while Kerry v Monaghan in the Sam Maguire round robin was on in Killarney.

Meanwhile, later in the evening, there was a full round of Kerry club league matches. Incidentally, their schedule is pretty hectic as well – 10 matches in 14 weeks.

TALENTED

Then on Sunday afternoon, while the Kerry hurlers were in action against Offaly in Tullamore in the Joe McDonagh Cup, 20 miles away in Portlaoise the Under-20 team took on Tyrone in the All-Ireland final.

Spare a thought for Luke Crowley, who was due to play in both matches. Talented though he is, he hasn’t mastered the art of bi-location, so he missed the McDonagh Cup game.

Incidentally, it is not just in Kerry this is happening.

People keep telling me stories of players having to rush out of university exam halls to play provincial Under-20 games in midweek.

We had the farcical situation of two minor provincial finals (Leinster football and Munster hurling) being played last Monday night.

Remember, some of these players are sitting the Leaving Certificate in a couple of weeks, which could be the most important exam in their lives.

Common sense anybody?

How about scheduling these competitions for the summer months when these lads are on holidays. Is that too simple?

Last weekend’s first round in the Sam Maguire series was underwhelming to put it mildly, and the crowds stayed away.

In theory, the format is a clever one – and we had an exciting last round of fixtures in 2023. But playing 24 games to eliminate four teams is OTT.

Kerry’s Group 4, which also includes Monaghan, Louth and Meath, exposes the flaws in the system.

It is the weakest group by a country mile. Without breaking into a sweat, Kerry will finish top and cruise into the quarter-finals.

Fans are not fools. There were just 8,000 in Fitzgerald Stadium for the clash against Monaghan.

To describe it as a contest would be a breach of the trade description act.

Mind you, I am still at a loss to explain where Kerry are at.

So, I will just list the pros and cons of their latest performance.

For:

Kerry scored 24 points, 16 of which came from turnovers. They were superb in the opening half, leading 0-15 to 0-2 at the break and boasting an 88 per cent conversion rate, with all six forwards finding the target.

The defence was solid, the team tried to deploy a kicking game and the two-man full-forward line of David Clifford and Paul Guiney showed a lot of promise.

Against:

Admittedly, the game was over at half-time, but it was disappointing Kerry didn’t kick on. They conceded one goal, though it could have been three. Andrew Woods’ miss will surely go down as one of the worst in the championship.

I know I sound like a broken record on this issue, but dominant though Kerry were, they again failed to raise a green flag. That’s four matches in a row now, and no forward has scored a goal in the last eight games.

It is both a mindset and a tactical issue. They could learn from Cork hurlers’ second-half performance against Tipperary – they went for the jugular at every opportunity. Kerry don’t do that.

What also bothers me about Kerry is the lack of a scoring impact from the bench. This was one of Dublin’s key strengths during the Jim Gavin era.

ISSUES

In contrast, the Kerry bench looks particularly weak. There are two issues at play.

Jack O’Connor is slow to make changes. Last Saturday the game was over at half-time, but Kerry didn’t introduce their first substitute until the 50th minute.

Surely the Cliffords could have been rested earlier?

What’s really alarming though is how ineffective the replacements are in the scoring department.

Remember they are coming in when games are over from a competitive viewpoint and the play has opened up. Yet the only scores the bench have come up with in the championship are two points from Paul Geaney.

So wretched was Monaghan’s first-half performance, it was hard to believe they ran Dublin close in last year’s All-Ireland semi-final and also beat them in the first round of this season’s league.

I know they are punching above their weight and have a small population, but that first-half effort was the worst I have ever seen in Killarney from a frontline team in the championship.

They were clueless, off the pace, made too many unforced errors, had no tackling, no work rate and a lack of basic skills. In sum, they were a shambles.

The Galway v Derry encounter was far more interesting.

Galway are coming to the boil at just the right time,

with Cillian McDaid getting game time.

There was much to admire about their performance. Paul Conroy was outstanding; they successfully targeted Damien Comer with their long kickouts, their patient buildup play and their cuteness when they had the extra man – they really worked the Derry defence from side to side.

DIFFICULT

Granted, the sending off changed everything for Derry and it was difficult to assess their performance, given they had 14 men for 50 minutes.

Gareth McKinless’s red card – for stamping on Comer – was totally justified. It was a cowardly act and he deserves a long suspension.

Just like Mayo did last year in Kevin McStay’s first season, I wonder did Derry peak too early under new boss Mickey Harte.

It is significant they have failed to score a goal so far in the championship – they hit 16 in the league.

Worse still, their shooting continues to be erratic. They had a 45pc conversion rate from play against Donegal.

In the first half against Galway, it was six from 15 – they had four wides and five dropped into the goalkeeper’s hands.

Two of the games high-profile managers, Harte and Davy Fitzgerald, hardly covered themselves in glory last weekend.

Bad enough for Harte to suggest there was play-acting involved in the free which Damien Comer won before he was stamped on, he failed to address the McKinless incident.

He needed to hold his hands up and apologise. As for Davy, his post-match behaviour in Ennis was petulant in the extreme.