The GAA must embrace and protect its latest squeeze
RULE NUMBER 1 for members of the Velominati (Keepers of the Cog!) is simple: ‘Obey the Rules’. But it is rule 5 that is the crux. It states simply: ‘Harden the **** up’. The GAA hierarchy would do well to remember these as we enter a new season. The introduction of the black card, which only squeezed through at the Association’s annual Congress, is now up and running in the pre-season tournaments.
But lovers of Gaelic football will be forgiven for not throwing their hats in the air just yet. You see, we have been here before. In the 2005 season, the sin bin was introduced in an attempt to free the game from the tyranny of the spoilers. Prior to its introduction it was endorsed by big name managers, who were afforded due respect by being involved in a lengthy consultation process. It’s fun to remember what some of them said at the time.
At one such forum in Portlaoise in 2004, there was virtually unanimous support for the proposal, and guess who was at the head of the posse? None other than Mickey Harte who said afterwards: ‘I think a sin bin would be a very good thing to experiment with in next year’s McKenna Cup and O’Byrne Cup.’
Yet within 12 months, it was the managers who had killed it off. They moaned incessantly after matches and the hierarchy duly lost its nerve. In 2009, a modified sin-bin rule was introduced but it was subjected to concentrated managerial attacks from the off and, once again, the GAA buckled.
The debate in the run up to the passing of the watered down black card proposal at the most recent Congress was marked by constant scaremongering. The big problem for the ‘no’ camp was that logic was not on their side, but it didn’t stop the venting of spleen at will.
The eminent members of the Football Review Committee had carried out exhaustive and exhausting research on the state of the game and had reached conclusions which were factually based. One manager’s response – epitomising the all frills and no knickers approach of the wreckers – was that ‘small minded suits are intent on wrecking the game.’
LOUTH MANAGER Aidan O’Rourke (right) lashed the FRC as ‘meddlers and little-to-be-ats who never coach’. But the most vocal critic was Harte who described the FRC members as Eugene McGee’s ‘cohorts’, as though they were involved in some sneaky attack on the fabric of the game.
Harte’s argument, inevitably, was not an argument at all, rather a bald statement that ‘the game is fine’ and ‘the current rules just need to be properly applied’.
Glen Ryan, whose teams play some of the most negative football I have seen, peddled the line that it would ‘confuse referees’. At Congress, the referees’ chief Pat McEnaney – a man who has refereed a game or two in his time – stood up and said that ‘referees want this, as it will clarify things and give us the tools we need’. His words were borne out to spectacular effect in the following months.
Tyrone’s behaviour in three successive championship games set the alternative philosophies in stark relief. My explosion on RTÉ’s Sunday Game after their dishonorable victory over Monaghan put the spotlight on cynical fouling.
The following day I was swamped as I tried to get up Jones’ Road for the second day of quarter-finals. It became apparent that Gaels were no longer going to sit on their hands in frustration as the game was dragged into the gutter.
The mood was positively buoyant. As I made my way to my seat I was slapped firmly on the back. I turned and to my surprise it was the Taoiseach who congratulated me on my outburst. With that, he turned on his heel and was gone. GAA CEO Páraic Duffy spotted me and embraced me, shaking my hand furiously.
Three of the FRC lads a few seats along roared in delight when they saw me. When Seán Cavanagh and the rest were shame-facedly telling the media they hated cynical fouling and the black card rule couldn’t be introduced soon enough, it was clear a new mood was abroad.
Since that fateful weekend in August, there has scarcely been a word of protest raised against the black card. A fortnight ago, it was introduced with a whimper not a bang.
Down manager James McCartan told the media after their McKenna Cup game with Derry that the three black cards his team received were ‘textbook examples’.
For the record, the black cards were for two blatant body checks and one ‘Seán Cavanagh’. In August at Croke Park, the crowd was enraged when the referee flourished a yellow to the Tyrone great after his rugby tackle on Conor McManus. But it was all the referee could do. Next time it happens Big Seán will be on the line.
The black card introduces the principle that skill and positive play must be protected. The hierarchy must now show the courage of their convictions until that principle becomes firmly established in the GAA’s psyche. The naysayers have no logical arguments, they are reduced to pandering to their own constituency. They previously wrecked attempts to cure the cancer of cynical fouling. There will be teething problems. There will be days when the FRC lads and the hierarchy will wonder if they have done the right thing. On those days, all they need to do is fol
low rule 5…