The Irish Mail on Sunday

Football could do with a shot of whatever hurling’s getting

-

THIS is more than a midsummer slump. Football never looks its best this time of year, and since the advent of the qualifiers the line between provincial dreariness and authentic Championsh­ip matches between the best teams in Ireland has been drawn in August.

However, this year the football campaign looks plainer than usual. There has been the rare provincial upset that convinces some the old system is still fit for use, but drudgery has been the leitmotif.

That is not a new phenomenon, but football is suffering this year in comparison to the fresh, blustery dramas blowing through hurling.

For the past decade football has obliged with most of the excitement in Gaelic games, from the resurgence of Dublin to the breakthrou­gh of Donegal under the remarkable Jim McGuinness, to Mayo’s unanswered prayers, and Kerry’s occasional stirrings.

Hurling was gaoled for most of those years behind black and amber bars. Clare seemed to presage generation­al change with their surprise All-Ireland win in 2013 but Kilkenny won the next two Championsh­ips.

Now, they are in decline and the scramble for their kingdom is thrilling. Galway have assembled one of the most physically powerful sides the game has seen. Cork have risen. Wexford have responded to the singular promptings of Davy Fitzgerald.

Waterford are struggling but remain contenders, and the defending champions Tipperary, probably still the best team in Ireland, must trace a way through the Qualifiers back to the big days in Dublin 3.

Unpredicta­bility courses through the competitio­n. The hurling snob is returned to his customary pose.

Two days before the first provincial football final of the year, meanwhile, Dessie Dolan was setting the news agenda. Dolan was a wonderful footballer but his abilities as a pundit are much, much more modest.

That his thoughts on the ashes of the Diarmuid Connolly ballyhoo are the most notable football story of the week is symptomati­c of a listless Championsh­ip.

It is not that controvers­ies should not be addressed. That attitude prevails among supporters when one of their own is in trouble, and enlightene­d modern managers quickly resort to entrenched positions when a player under their charge is in trouble.

However, this has now ceased to be about Connolly and has become a fruitless spat between competing pundits, none of whom add much other than noise to the summer.

Jim Gavin’s defence of Connolly was not unexpected, but it was a remarkable change of direction for a manager whose pronouncem­ents in public were heretofore distinguis­hed by their sterility.

And even if one disputed what he said about Connolly – and the contention that analysts prejudiced a disciplina­ry hearing by merely giving an opinion was ridiculous – it was bracing to hear the most successful manager in modern football sound like a blood-and-bone, partisan human being.

That Gavin scattering some TV figures with verbal buckshot is the story of the summer so far gives an indication of how sluggish the football has been.

It happens, but the dreariness of June and July football was more obviously explicable in previous years. Dublin, Mayo and Kerry dominated the Leinster, Connacht and Munster provincial championsh­ips, with Ulster the sole crucible of reliable drama.

The circumstan­ces that sent Monaghan and Donegal reeling into the qualifiers should qualify as dramatic, and Down’s tense win eight days ago was faithful to Ulster’s reputation.

There have been tense set-tos elsewhere as well. The case for Mayo’s apparent decline was fortified by their messy loss to Galway, and Cork have tumbled through two evenings of high drama, almost losing to Waterford and Tipperary before crawling to Killarney this afternoon.

Yet the sum of these events has not altered people’s expectatio­ns of how the Championsh­ip will be shaped come late August. Worse, though, has been the crankiness.

This is itself the culminatio­n of a culture, tolerated by Croke Park, that has seen inter-county teams become more remote. It was interestin­g, for instance, that the Dublin protest took the form of a media blackout on individual interviews for broadcaste­rs after the match against Westmeath.

There will, presumably, be no impact on players talking at events promoting Dublin sponsors, one of which is planned for tomorrow. This is how the team now communicat­es, with Gavin this season eschewing pre-match press conference­s.

Dublin are not alone in controllin­g their environmen­t to such an extent, but it does nothing for a football competitio­n that at this time of year needs all the colour it can get.

Most of the leading hurling teams are as image-cautious, but this summer their games need no adornment.

The contrast with football’s sour story is not flattering.

 ??  ?? FRONT MEN: Davy Fitz and Jim Gavin have made the headlines
FRONT MEN: Davy Fitz and Jim Gavin have made the headlines

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from Ireland