WHERE THE BRAVE GO TO DIE
History has told us one thing and one thing only, these provincial championships are...
GOD bless them. The Leinster Council made the best fist they could of peddling the unsellable this week.
They went for Trim Castle as the backdrop for the launch of their provincial football championship.
Perhaps it was in the hope that it might invoke the spirit of Braveheart – the castle featured in the 1990’s blockbuster where illequipped clans raged against an oppressive, greater-resourced force to pull off an early round shock.
Thing is not even Hollywood could sugar Billy Wallace’s brutish ending where he was hung, drawn and quartered for his temerity, a fate which the majority of Leinster’s football tribes can relate to.
Then again, they might just have held it there to ensure that Meath will have played some meaningful part in this summer’s Leinster Championship.
But our hearts go out to Leinster officials; they could have got Michael D to cut the ribbon and Ed Sheeran to sing it in, but all the bells and whistles in the world would not sell this thing.
In terms of ill-fated launches, it is right up there with the bright spark who years ago decided there was an untapped market for body conscious porter drinkers.
The Leinster Championship is to Gaelic football what the short-lived Guinness Light was to stout swillers, lacking the substance and taste of the real thing.
The only difference is that they are still force-feeding us this dodgy brew in the GAA’s ale house. And it’s not just Leinster, even if it is the poster child for an outdated and imbalanced system. The dysfunction is universal. And, yet, in that classic Irish way which demands that you never speak ill of the dead or the dying there are some who are mourning the marginalisation of competitions which demand to be put to sleep for good.
Tom McGlinchey, the Waterford football manager, has become one of the most sensible and powerful advocates for the games disenfranchised.
He had right on his side when he took the GAA to task for the shoddy manner the CCCC treated the lower division leagues this season, denying some counties the opportunity to complete their schedules.
Croke Park’s lack of reason on that front was even more exposed when a proposal from Waterford to play their outstanding league game against Leitrim at the end of April in Abbotstown was rejected, yet the Déise played Laois in a challenge game last month on the date which the CCC took objection to.
He has reason to feel angry; if Mayo v Dublin in Castlebar had been deemed an unplayed dead rubber, you just know that a way would still have been found to get the ball thrown in.
But it is not breaking news that the decks are stacked against the game’s minnows, and neither is every change designed to marginalise them.
Yet, the advent of the Super 8s this summer – the only source of intrigue to a championship that is becoming far too predictable for its own good – has become a convenient target for those who believe that the GAA are cementing elitist leanings into rule.
‘BBC have now pulled out of the Ulster Championship, and are only showing two games is it up there?
‘RTÉ are only showing two of the Munster football games. It’s all about the Super 8s, you will see it over the next couple of years.
‘Unfortunately you will probably see the provincial championships will just drift away,’ said McGlinchey this week.
But where is the misfortune for Waterford football if the provincial championships evaporated into thin air over night?
How does a competition structure which has doubled as a prison serve a county like Waterford who have won three Munster championship games in the last 30 years.
They are locked into a two-party state where the dominant team, Kerry, has only lost once in the past 61 years to a team other than Cork.
What is to there to mourn if we took a shovel and buried that?
In Leinster, Dublin are going for their 13th title in 14 years and even Sean Hannity would blush if he tried to spin the line that this is down to a golden generation.
Tedium is Dublin’s only challenger.
Leitrim are name-checked, on the strength of 1994, for those who prosecute the relevance of the provincial system, but they will never get a chance to do so again now that size and science is king. Ulster retains a pulse but it does not beat as strongly as it once did and while the condensed provincial format has led to unfathomable oversight that this month’s Tyrone/ Monaghan match will not be televised live, those who see that as a visceral treat in the first place could really do with getting out a bit more often. The Super 8s are not elitist – after all the pathway exists for everyone and 23 counties have reached the last eight since its inception in 2001. There is no format – nor should there be – which will stop the cream rising to the top. And when it rises this time, the system is designed so we get to savour it.
How does a structure doubling as a prison serve Waterford?
The suggestion it’s going to make the strong stronger and weak weaker is misplaced. That has already been happening for an age, but it has more to do with internal structures and investment than a flawed competition format.
The real question is what the weaker counties are going to do about it?
There are other ways; most obviously seeking inclusion in an open draw Champions League championship which could lead into a tier championship.
Whichever way they choose to go, they should not spend their time mourning the death of a structure which was never their friend in the first place. It is time for a new way. No need for brave hearts, just smart heads.