Dean Rock is free to offer his services

LAST week I had cause to call my doctor about a minor matter (I’ll be fine, thanks for asking), and given this Covid-19 business the whole thing was conducted over the telephone. Between two phone calls - either side of me having to email a photograph of the issue - everything insofar as dealing with the GP was done in about 10 minutes. On being handed back to the receptionist, she never missed a beat when saying ‘that’ll be just forty (euro) so please’.

The same week I brought my car to my mechanic to sort a few very minor things, a couple of squeaky doors, a loose fan belt, a quick look at one of the brake discs. At a guess, it probably took 10 to 15 minutes to take care of, with a couple of squirts of WD40 the only expense to the mechanic other than his time. He was happy to relieve me of €20 for the service.

Within the same couple of days word starting going around about Dean Rock’s new venture, whereby the Dublin footballer is offering coaching sessions on free taking. A couple of things seem to be really exercising people on this: first, the fact that an active Gaelic footballer is offering such a service at a fee, and second, the actual prices quoted for the sessions.

Let’s go back to my doctor and mechanic for a moment. At €40 for a 10-minute phone call the GP is on almost €250 an hour. The mechanic is touching off €100 per hour. Heck, I even pay my barber €12 for being no more than eight or nine minutes in the chair for a hair cut, so that’s about €85 an hour at that rate. Of course, these are crude calculations, and every GP won’t do six 10-minute consultations every hour, or mechanic check every car in a quarter of an hour, or barber administer seven or eight short-back-and-sides in a 60-minute shift, but these people can make very tidy money when the going is good.

Dean Rock is, apparently, charging an individual €350 for the first two sessions and €200 per session thereafter, with a sliding scale for group sessions, reportedly rising to €650 for the first two sessions and €400 for subsequent sessions where four (or more) attendees are concerned. Travel expenses for Rock are additional.

It’s not clear if the prices quoted are an hourly rate, but given that the advertising leaflet says Rock is offering ‘workshops; weekend academies; small group sessions; [and] private sessions’ it might be reasonable to assume one would get more than 60 minutes for their first €350. Either way, the Ballymun Kickhams man has decided on a price structure that would appear steep, but here’s the thing: it’s a non-essential service that no one is obliged to invest in.

Last week I had to contact my doctor because I was in pain, and I had to take my car to the mechanic because having a working motor is crucial to me and my family. And while getting my hair cut isn’t critical to my existence, at some point every few months I do need a trim.

As far as honing my free taking skills goes, while I might believe I’m a dead-eye off the ground but my kicking from the hand could do with a little improvement, it’s really just a personal choice whether or not I ring Rock and pay his train ticket to Tralee so he can fine-tune my long range frees from the left hand side, which have a tendency to drift wide on the near side.

Rock is offering a service but there’s no obligation on anyone to subscribe. But here’s the thing: if there is an aspiring young footballer (or an established inter-county player) who feels some free taking tuition from a noted practitioner like Rock would benefit him or her, then it’s entirely reasonable that that player would put in a call to the Dubliner, and good to luck to both parties. It’s more likely that the player’s club or county would subsidise, or pay in full, Rock’s fee, and, again, more power to all concerned.

It’s seems there a couple of issues that are causing people most aggravation. First, there is old chestnut of the GAA’s ‘amateurism’, and the notion that Rock shouldn’t be profiting financially in the way he intends to. On the issue of amateurism in the GAA, by which we understand it to cover financial reward, the Association’s Rule 1.10 of the Official Guide states: “A player, team, official or member shall not accept payment in cash or in kind in conjunction with the playing of Gaelic games.”

On a first reading that rule seems clear and simple, but, as with many GAA rules, there’s a certain vagueness also. The words ‘...in conjunction with the playing of Gaelic games” suggests that said player, team, official or member shouldn’t profit as a direct result of playing the game; in other words, none of the above should be paid a wage, salary or one-off amount for their direct involvement in the sport. There are, of course, obvious exceptions to this, with regards to full-time staff in Croke Park, the provincial councils, a few full-time county board secretaries, and sundry administrators throughout the Association. All of these payments are legitimate, even though the details of which are not made known to the membership.

And then there are the illegitimate payments. You know the ones: the cash payments going to almost all club and inter-county managers who aren’t native to that club or county.

If you’re a secretary or treasurer of a club with an outside manager you know the story: an agreement of either a ‘per session’ fee - going rate nowadays is €100 and more, or a total amount for the season, which can be anything from €4,000 to well north of €10,000. Either way, it’s a lot of €2 club lotto tickets to be shifted every week.

Inter-county managers, needless to say, fair better. You can ballpark the, er, top lads at €30,000 a year, and it’s no exaggeration to say more that some of the journeymen managers have built fine houses and landscaped the garden on the back of managing teams.

And it’s fair to say that none of this rump of the GAA’s industrial complex will have anything negative to say about Dean Rock’s adventure. And if they do, it would probably be along the lines of wondering why he’d make his own venture above board and tax liable, rather than going under the table and circumventing those irksome things like income tax.

So is anyone really in denial that many, many managers are accepting payment in cash or in kind, but troubled by the fact that a player is offering to impart his undisputed talent and knowledge for an upfront fee?

And on a related issue, how many inter-county players are already receiving payment - both cash and in kind - by way of money for product endorsements, appearance fees for attending sponsorship launches, and who are driving sponsored cars? Hundreds is the answer.

One wonders, too, if some of the criticism of Rock isn’t because of who he is, and, pertinently, where he is from?

Given all the noise about Dublin GAA’s financial clout in recent years, and how that may - or may not - be having a direct positive influence on their success on the field of play, it seems Rock might be in the firing line as much for the colour of his jersey as anything else.

Would there be such an outcry if Mayo marksman Cillian O’Connor - the all-time leading scorer in the Championship - signalled his intent to run free kick camps? Or Conor McManus?

Even at just 21 years of age, our own Sean O’Shea could certainly instruct a few people on the art of free taking: would Kerry people having a cut off Dean Rock have the same problem with the Kenmare man running and charging for a few kicking camps?

It seems, also, that some part of the ‘problem’ with Rock is that he is an active inter-county footballer, and as such he should be volunteering his help and advice for free.

Anecdotally, Dean Rock is up there with the best of what the top inter-county footballers and hurlers do with regard to giving their time. There’s no doubt that Rock puts in plenty of time with the juvenile players in Ballymun Kickhams, and most likely does the Dublin circuit when it comes to handing out those end-of-year medals and awards.

Beyond that, should be really be expected to travel the country, to weekend functions over the winter, giving his time just for the good of the Association. And do people really expect that he is going to offer his free kicking expertise to young players in Kerry or Tyrone or Kildare or Meath just to be a good Gael?

Yes, Dean Rock is still an inter-county and club player, but should that preclude him from running a coaching course on his own time?

If Dara O Cinnéide or Stephen O’Neill or Daniel Goulding or even Dean’s father Barney - all superb dead ball kickers in their day - were touting their expertise at fee paying workshops it would be less of an issue, if it was an issue at all. Does that really matter though? It didn’t take Dean Rock’s venture to come to light to highlight that the GAA world is full of managers and coaches and experts and gurus who many might regard as bluffers and spoofers and snakeoil salesmen who have far less to offer at a much greater price than what Rock is offering for a few hundred euro.

Inter-county teams are full of ‘professionals’ who are more than willing to impart the latest expertise or technology at a handsome price, and while some of these people come well qualified in sports science and relevant fields, many more are simply experts at talking the talk.

Rock has walked the walk. He has been there, done that, worn the inter-county jersey and kicked the All-Ireland title winning frees. Has a club or county board any more to lose by giving the Dubliner five or six hundred euro for a weekend’s tuition for their forwards than they have to some shaman who is flogging the latest magic elixir.

The bottom line is this: an awful lot of people involved in the GAA are on the take in some shape or form. Players are included in that. How that sits with the GAA’s amateur ethos is one thing, but that genie was let out of the bottle a long time ago. Dean Rock has something to sell. How he is doing it is upfront and not in contravention of a vague, archaic rule.

Whether anyone wants to buy what Rock is selling is their choice. It’s a free market: take it or leave it.