Joining the dots but still running around in circles

November. Samhain. That month of the pagan Celt where reflection and connection to those thin places that they believed surround us, has in the last few decades morphed into the onset of Christmas, Black Friday and a modern excess of instant gratification. Jingle Bells wafting across the shopping aisles in deep November, the sombre All Saints and Souls start to the month takes a giddy U-turn about three weeks in. Nature abhors a vacuum they say, so too does sport.

This month has seen the passing of a childhood legend of mine, Galway’s Noel Tierney. A three time All-Ireland winner and a Player of the Year, Tierney carried the cloak of greatness in a humble manner. Playing underage with Garrymore, selected for minor training with Mayo, not for the first time did Galway maestro ‘Tull’ Dunne spike Mayo with an objection. As they say, Mayo’s loss was Galway’s gain. I’ll come back to Noel again.

A month that should have given the GAA a break from national headlines, hasn’t. The new Football Rules Committee (FRC), overseen in the main by managers who fashioned the old system into the borefest it became, probably weren’t impressed by top referee David Gough’s grenade into the proposals. Bluntly put, it beggars belief that not a single referee was on the mainframe committee. Sandboxes and soft soap won’t drown out Gough’s common sense appraisal of the proposals voted on last Saturday.

The tectonic plates in Dublin shifted with the removal of possibly one of the greatest combination of midfielders ever. The retirement of James McCarthy wasn’t a shock but that of 31-year-old sidekick Brian Fenton was. Both were central to the Dublin machine. Sixteen All-Irelands between them will ease the retirement pangs. We tend to reach for comparisons to underline greatness. Fenton has been compared to Jack O’Shea, and justifiably so. I’d compare McCarthy to Ògie Moran of Kerry, understated but never underrated by the opposition.

Pat Gilroy also resigned from the board of Croke Park, correctly referencing the march by the GAA towards all things monetary. The sad thing is Gilroy’s resignation won’t stop the train on the track to quasi professionalism within the game. Dovetailing his exit is the GPA, the inter-county union for players, stating they aren’t opposed to managers getting paid. Of course not. Already Croke Park is akin to a Swiss knife multi-purpose venue for conferences, courts, a Covid centre, music venue and occasionally Gaelic games. Paid managers suits the GPA; their case for an annual stipend becomes a route much easier.

Which brings me to the same GPA, the tail that currently wags the dog. The spilt season that isn’t a split season is their creation. A small percentage of players with an inordinate amount of power. Who speaks for the 10 to 1 ratio of club players who have to mark time until Sam ends in July and then allow the month of August for the inter-county lad to visit his long lost cousins, normally either in New York or Boston. Currently, amid the muck, snow, fog and occasional postponements, the club lad strives for a slice of the sun that once shone upon them.

The obsession with a handful of inter-county players and the inter-county games will eventually do damage. We hear about the welfare of the county player, the ‘sacrifice’ they make, that they ‘owe us nothing’, that they are amateurs, blah, blah, blah. All partially true but in the context of opportunity, educational benefits, profile, status and rewards that come via endorsements and invites etc., the county man does well, very well. Bluntly put, not a single county player is forced to tog out, not a single county player is asked to sacrifice a scintilla of his or her life. They chose this willingly and generally the returns outweigh the input.

Let’s not forget that whilst the split season has arrived, clubs still have to run 24/7 all year. Pitches must be maintained, club houses heated, cleaned and managed, the eternal quest for funds necessary, insurance and legal matters sorted, gear sourced. Non-playing volunteers do that. All clubs survive because of the volunteer and the willingness of that community to put the hand in the pocket to pay for the privilege of having a club in the community. They weren’t set up for GAAGO or the various inter-county managers and players to have first feast on the bounty they produce. They weren’t put in place to be locked behind pay walls for view. They weren’t put in place for strong groups to decide when and where that great game will be played. Let’s be clear here. The GAA occupies a special place in our society because of community buy-in and volunteerism. Strip that out and the journey to a more ‘professional’ comes with peril.

We cannot afford the journey the GPA and elements in Croke Park want.

Take Manchester United’s latest manager, Ruben Amorim, who in his first statement might have put his finger on the mess that has been at Old Trafford since 2013. Asked about Rashford and Casimiro’s international break trip to New York, Amorim replied, ‘They went because no one at the club told them they couldn’t’. No obfuscation, bluntly unvarnished, and revealing the chaos currently at United despite Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s costly investment and state-of-the-art business and cutting edge backroom teams. No one was left in charge at Old Trafford during international week.

I think it was from James Laffey’s excellent Will Galway beat Mayo? that he referenced what seemed at the time an innocuous experience encountered by former Mayo 1960s hopeful Pat Sheridan, a graduate of St Jarlath’s and its Hogan Cup history, then shooting the lights out with UCG’s Sigerson Cup winning team backboned by Galway’s would be 3-in-a-row players. Sheridan, by the mid-1960s, either for educational opportunities or work, had decamped to London and on his return around 1967 wished to resume his inter-county career. His problem? There was no one he could talk to, no portal to go through, no one in overall charge of the Mayo wheelhouse.

Now we revisit Noel Tierney. From the same book, Will Galway beat Mayo?, a passage is devoted to the transfer request received from Mayo County Board to get clearance for Tierney, whose family’s land edged into Mayo, to be available for the Mayo minors. John ‘Tull’ Dunne and the Galway county secretary blocked the request. A few years later they raided Mayo territory once more. A 1965 visit to St Jarlath’s study hall achieved the signature of Claremorris man Jimmy Duggan to play for the county of his forebearers. In my opinion, if Duggan had been properly approached by Mayo, he would have played for our minors.

Having allowed a Galway raid for Duggan, Mayo seemed averse to raiding themselves, thus Castlebar-born Dermot Earley, cousin of nearby Ballyhaunis player JJ Cribben, was allowed to slip into Roscommon arms. Again from research I would form the impression, like Duggan, an approach from Mayo would have been well received by Earley.

Amorim’s first take on the Manchester United hierarchy was revealing. The importance of a skipper on the wheel in the wheelhouse. Between 1954 and 1970 the Galway wheelhouse was manned and operative. Four All-Irelands were festooned to its bow in that era. Just saying.

Rust never sleeps and neither does Mayo woes. Cillian O’Connor is taking a year out aged 32. One could safely say O’Connor genuinely owes the county nothing. A Mayo icon and I agree with James Horan here, not given the respect nationally he merits. Cillian had a cut to his game that was felt by the opposition. He didn’t carry that Mayo trait of perceived softness and the Dubs didn’t like him for it; Cillian didn’t yield to their playing on the edge. He played on that edge himself. However, age combined with injury interrupted his last few seasons and altered perhaps his status within the set up.

Ironically, it was the last meaningful game of 2007, where Mayo also suffered a back door defeat to Derry under the new then new manager John O’Mahony, that heralded the end of another Mayo forward icon, Ciaran McDonald. And, if I’m not mistaken, David Brady too. Then, as now, the tribe didn’t take kindly to the sidelining of a hero. That Cillian O’Connor hasn’t retired but taken a year out, has led to speculation. Often there is no smoke, hence no fire. Common sense, maybe, a couple of seasons recovering from injury and a lack of game time maybe leading to ‘I’ll take a season out, give the body a break and see where I am’. If Michael Murphy can come back at 35, there’s no reason why Cillian couldn’t in a playmaker role at 11 in a year’s time.

But. Tie together O’Connor’s willingness to park up for a season along with Liam McHale’s decision to walk away from the management team last season and it’s fair to say the optics lead to genuine questions. A review that seemingly wasn’t much of a review but which lasted a long time, left smouldering undercurrents. O’Connor stepping away allows flames to take hold. Again we come back to managing the narrative, controlling the story, telling it as it is. Silence isn’t always golden and neither is non-stop megaphoning. There is a balance though where those in charge show they are in charge, point a direction, draw a line and end debate. And then move on.

I’m not sure we’ve hit that balance. Our messaging is jarred and jagged. Too open to be interpreted by whomever wants to spin a yarn. Often blunt suffices.

Brian Cody on meeting an uncertain Jackie Tyrell, holder of nine All-Irelands, over an unfinished coffee told Tyrell, no hard feelings, the team is moving on and Tyrell wouldn’t be on that bus. Blunt and business like, and end of story. No sentiment, nobody owed anything. Similarly, Tommy Walsh, turbine wing-back, destroyer and launchpad of many of Kilkenny’s All-Ireland wins, was left sitting on the bench despite two sub spots still left to Cody on Tommy’s last foray in a Kilkenny jersey. His previous exploits earned him the place on the bench but not a sentimental on-field farewell from Cody. The jersey mattered, you earned the right to wear it. The squad took note. No favourites, no arguments.

In trying to join the dots in this late winter GAA calendar, we are certain of nothing. Getting rid of the famous Ban took five decades. The GAA instructed its delegates last weekend that either all the FRC’s 49 recommendations are accepted or none. Thinking here is like a sledgehammer to crush a peanut. I recall a county manger saying a few years ago that the GAA was one rule away from an Aussie Rules style game. By my reckoning we will now be 48 rules ahead of their game. Is that what we want?

Fògra 

Mayo County Board last week decided no press should be allowed into its meeting. No comment.