Rich Man, Poor Man
Mayo attacker Ryan O'Donoghue among supporters following last Sunday's win against Donegal. Picture: INPHO/James Lawlor
The Philly MacMahon column in Saturday’s Herald.
Philly the Philosopher is often on the money. Succinct in his summation. Before Sunday’s Division 1 throw-ins, the table ran Galway first, Dublin, Donegal and Mayo. Kerry occupied fifth spot. Kerry, they, depending on results get relegated. And so began the ever changing table.
By the 12th minute of the matches Mayo remained in fourth spot. Decent league, no relegation, the hounds called off the managerial team. By the 23rd minute Mayo were in second place and a league final. All they had to do was see that margin out. What did Philly say? ‘But I just don’t fancy them. Maybe I’ll be wrong about Mayo’.
By the 31st minute Mayo were top of the table, amazingly on a minus 0-1 deficit. Donegal looked like a team unsure how to approach this match. Four half-time changes with five unanswered points between the 45th and 50th minutes showed Donegal cared about the league. By the 52nd minute we were still top but by the 56th minute Donegal were top and we were fifth. Spin the wheel again and by the minute 64th minute Mayo were first with the Kingdom in second. A penalty that still puzzles me would knock us back to sixth, but a save kept us on top, the width of the crossbar kept us us there and with a leap and a bound we were in our fourth league final since 2019. Howzat!
A pattern is evolving and confirmed by the standings at the end of the league. The top five teams, Galway, Dublin, Donegal, Mayo and Kerry have won twelve of the last fourteen All-Irelands. Mayo and Galway have contested eight senior finals in that period. Not quite a closed shop but heading that way if we include the outliers Tyrone and Armagh in that period.
Politicians are elected on all sorts of promises and pledges but ultimately it’s the market and big business that throw the bucket of realty on the system ensuring that it’s what they want that gets done not what the people might wish for. The current standing of this year’s league reflects the power base of the elite counties. The top five confirm almost fifteen years of the same old consistent counties. The league essentially reflects the stock market.
Each team in the top five kinda shrugs the shoulders at the thought of actually winning the league but all five will nod approvingly at the depth of their squads, the lack of serious injuries and the prospect of heading into the championship road-tested. Dublin are replacing the old guard, Galway’s forwards so far are injury free, Donegal has the Jim moment, Kerry are hiding in plain sight. Mayo are league finalists once again – a transformation that this writer didn’t see but that’s Mayo for you. I also detect that the roles within the backroom team are clearer now. McStay, the front of house and general manager, with Rochford the head coach. Nothing wrong with that by the way, it just needed clarity. Now we see it. So that’s how the rich counties operate. Division 2 is a dogfight.
Roscommon flew out of the blocks with their manager absolutely extolling this new format. Cavan lost their first two matches, then hit form as stoic Monaghan stole a lead on them all. Only one of Roscommon, Cavan, Meath and Cork would be coming up with them. That’s how far the game has moved since 2010.
Leitrim failed to field a team in Division 3 against Fermanagh in Round 6. It’s a warning of what lays ahead. Apparently Leitrim had only sixteen players available for selection. Health and welfare was cited as the reason for the non-fulfilment of the match. Welcome to the Gen Z era. Let’s look at what the Leitrim GAA website itself says. “What makes Leitrim unique in Gaelic Football circles is not the county’s achievements on the field but the high level of participation in the sport. Leitrim, the county with the smallest population of any of Ireland’s 32 counties, has the highest number of GAA clubs per capita in any county of Ireland.” And yet it couldn’t field a team. It’s plain what has happened. The modern day panel of 35 to 40 players is essentially a closed shop where the spoils of sport are contained within that core group, the fitness and conditioning levels of the county panel lads naturally superior to the club lad. So, technically, Leitrim felt that looking outside their first team squad was pointless, figuratively and actually. The role of the club player was never laid out in more stark terms. He’s not wanted. The introduction of the essentially closed county panel has now stopped upwards mobility and transition from the clubs. In other words, the gap between the club player and county player in Leitrim is too wide and bridging it would be a breach of health and safety concerns.
I don’t buy that for a moment. And if I was a Leitrim club player I’d be livid. Here was a chance to do the correct thing, preserve the integrity of the league, include the better club lad even if it was short term. But no.
Three months after the 1958 Munich air disaster, Manchester United fielded a team in that year’s FA Cup final containing three of the surviving members of that ill-fated day. Wood, their goalkeeper, had a shoulder dislocated early in that final. Two seasons earlier, Man City’s Bert Trautmann played most of that year’s final with a bone broken in his neck. Meath played a treble against Dublin in 1991 where the bones of both counties playing stock was tested to the limit but they fielded. It’s what you do. It’s expected. You turn up. You play.
But this is not Leitrim bashing. This is pointing out the road ahead. We are now at a tipping point in the game. Leitrim has done the GAA a favour, they have exposed the gap between the county player and the club player. Dig deeper. Today, what and who is the ‘club player’? The better prospect tends to be a chap first spotted for the underage development squads around 14 or 15. Then fast tracked into the minor grade where many coaches don’t want them playing either club or college football. As he gets older, the club gets access to him, assuming he’s on the county senior panel, for approximately four to six club championship matches. More than likely he won’t feature in the club league fixtures ever.
Ergo. When a county then hits an injury crux and the numbers are severely depleted, correctly from their point of view, the fear of injury and damage to a lad not exposed to seasons of elite training and conditioning, renders dipping into the county club scene a futile exercise. Was that what was the intent of the old GAA? A seamless path from cradle to county. What Leitrim have done though is show us how fragile the county system is. Dependent now on lads trained to almost professional level. The centre won’t hold there. Certainly that level of training requires severe input but that’s a question for another day.
Bank of Ireland has an advertisement about a bearded retired rugby dad encouraging his daughter not to give up after a training session. His phone rings. He’s told that Joe Bloggs is called up to the international squad, thus creating a place in the province for someone else. It’s called the ‘domino effect’ because it ends with him being recalled from retirement into the Thirds. Bank of Ireland might have had trouble shooting that advertisement with an inter-county GAA team. The domino effect would have run out after player number forty was ruled out. Yes, I know, I’m being smart and maybe glib but am I really?
Leitrim has had its canary moment. No doubt questions will be asked from within the county. Other counties will be on alert themselves should they run an injury crisis. Two seasons ago outrage was expressed within hurling circles because those that actually understand the game and preach it, deemed that around five counties struggling to field a county team should be excluded from the leagues and rebuilt via clubs first at grassroots. Leitrim and Fermanagh were two of the counties involved in the proposed cull. Naturally the GPA and others got involved and saw the well intentioned structural surgery stymied. Indeed I thought it harsh a county be excluded.
Leitrim and Fermanagh again were two of the GAA boards that railed against that hurling proposal with the GPA backing. I hear a deafening silence from many regarding the no show by the footballers. Make no mistake, this is a big deal, in modern Ireland, a nation sticking its head into international affairs, that a county in its western province couldn’t field a senior male intercounty team in 2025. Think about it.
New rules, scoring arcs, three back, four back, hooters and foam for frees will make the product more shiny and glitzy but the travails of Leitrim and life beyond the top five show the the current championship exists in a rarefied and elite world. Leitrim has spoken. Let Croke Park listen.
