Reactionaries should have been resisted

SO, the League final stays, but how this is a victory for football is still to be explained. Don’t hold your breath.

Speculation that the deciders would be jettisoned as part of an effort to maximise space in next year’s calendar hit hard reality yesterday when the GAA’s management committee decided to retain them.

This was after days of flapping about the future of contests that no one deeply cares about.

The possibility of cutting them from the schedule was presented in bulletins as more evidence of the seismic changes transforming the GAA world as we once knew it. And this idea of rootlessness and uncertainty fits with the agenda of those broadcasters and commentators who have resisted the split season so fiercely.

This mooted change was not of the same magnitude, though.

If the Championship is so prized that alterations to its scheduling and structure prompts strong reactions (however unconvincing or even baseless), the National Football League is not as precious. It has been disassembled and put back together often over the years, like the building blocks of a child unsure of what their final creation should be.

Cutting finals from next year’s plans should have been no big deal, but we are reaching a point in Gaelic games where any deviation from the usual triggers cries of protest.

The reactionaries should have been resisted.