Cynicism still name of the game so long as players get off hook
Championship gets serious today and while Dublin protest their innocence, Mayo express admiration because...
DUBLIN, according to their manager, do not believe in winning at all costs. That way lies cheating, says Jim Gavin. ‘You’re trying to play the game as best you can in the right way,’ he explained recently. ‘Sometimes mistakes are made in games. We make mistakes as a management team. Mistakes are made in life.
‘You try and learn from it and get on with it. That’s all I can say.’
By dint of being the greatest football team in 40 years, Dublin influence the sport more than any county. Teams ape them in their efforts to get close to them. Their physical and tactical preparation is at a level that invites admiration and envy.
Their status also brings close attention; champions are scrutinised more than also-rans.
Because Dublin’s conduct is analysed, their advocates argue this betrays an instinctive anti-Dublin bias. That is pitiful nonsense. The champions are brilliant but also capable of deep cynicism. Gavin has addressed this topic many times over his five years in charge.
‘The facts demonstrate, in terms of yellow and black cards, that we’re not a cynical team,’ he said this time last year. This was after Eamonn Fitzmaurice had alluded to Dublin’s ‘hard edge’ before the league final.
In August 2015, after a wretched All-Ireland quarter-final between Tyrone and Monaghan scarred by cynicism, Gavin suggested it was actually a diminishing problem in football.
‘I think we’re seeing less and less of it and it’s going in the right direction,’ he said of the black card and attempts to curb cynical play.
‘I would be loath to think anyone would say Dublin are cynical,’ he said after taking Kerry to their first All-Ireland final in 2013.
We know Dublin are cynical through the evidence of our own eyes. Winning teams do what is necessary. Gavin may not be illuminating the words ‘win at all costs’ on a billboard, but the best teams find a way. They will push and push until someone sounds a whistle. Until then, they get away with what they can.
That impulse is not unique to the Dublin footballers.
David Clarke could not have been clearer in his attitude to gamesmanship in comments reported this week. He talked about last year’s All-Ireland final, the denouement of which was overshadowed by shameless cheating from both Dublin and Mayo. Lee Keegan threw a GPS unit in a futile attempt to distract Dean Rock kicking the winning point from a free, before Dublin players hauled down their opponents as Clarke tried to restart play.
‘That’s what some teams will do,’ he said. ‘We might have done the same thing if we were in the same position.’
Be sure they would.
Aidan O’Shea did not criticise Dublin when reflecting on the endgame last winter. ‘It’s just smart,’ he said. ‘They stopped us from getting the ball, they kept it for the rest of the game, they won.’
Their candour only echoed the view of Philly McMahon. ‘You’re never going to get rid of cynical play. Any player is going to do absolutely whatever they can. I would have taken off my jersey and thrown it at Dean Rock, to put him off.’
The championship gets serious this afternoon, with flintiness certain to be one of the defining characteristics of the Mayo-Galway reckoning in Castlebar.
Cards have been a regular feature of that match over the years, and the thought of weakening their team by getting sent to the line will temper any cool-thinking player.
Cynicism is different, though. Players are cynical because they get away with it, and cynical fouls are not the obvious case for a match official that a punch or an elbow are. The black card has checked some of the offending, but in the crucial periods of a match, a footballer will gamble that the punishment for cheating is a price their team must pay, if it improves the possibility of victory.
Until that changes, cynicism will remain a potent problem. It can never be eradicated – human instincts cannot be entirely subdued – but more immediate sanctions are required.
One suggestion is to award the wronged team a free-kick 20 metres from their opponents’ goal. Conceding such a good scoring opportunity would cause any straight-thinking player to pause before trying to kill time and momentum at the end of a game.
Don’t expect change in a hurry, though. There was a storm in the days after last year’s final. It passed.
Dublin protest their innocence. Mayo express their admiration.
And on it goes.