Further into the vortex

Come on Tipperary hurlers, play the game. Waterford and Cork’s hurling panels have both staged heaves against their manager, and now Clare and Limerick are doing the same. That Sheedy fella must have some skeletons in his closet that demand a principled response. Won’t someone please think of the children?

Turning the dial away from Silliness FM, the week’s events on Shannonside represent an escalation in a process that manages to be both inevitable and impossible to predict. It would be tempting to dismiss either spat as unrelated incidents, that the respective County Boards should simply back their managers to the hilt and that’ll be the end of the matter. Indeed, Clare already seem to be going down that road with chairman Michael O’Neill being rather bright and breezy about it all.

Tempting, and entirely misguided. International rugby squads once famously assembled the night before a match without much in the way of anything as shallow as training or preparation, and this was probably true back in the day for inter-county squads. This meant that camaraderie was purely based on internal county loyalties. Nowadays though, GAA panels spend months on end in each other’s pockets. No doubt Justin McCarthy would be of the opinion that there is no ‘panel’ once the season ends and he can start from scratch the following year. Strictly speaking he’d be correct but you can’t expect players, especially ones from a county who were lambasted by all and sundry like Limerick’s were after losing to Tipp last season, to so casually walk away from each other.

It’s a classic case of the law of unintended consequences. When the back door was introduced, the GAA didn’t foresee that county panels would become so much more militant as a result. And it’s only going to get worse.

All the news that’s fit to print

When is the Waterford county final? Who won it? When is the replay? The answer to none of these questions can be found on RTÉ’s hurling results page which, six days after the drawn game, has still not been updated to reflect the Waterford result. There is an argument to be made that the local GAA page would be a more logical place to keep this score and it can be found there, although at the time of writing there is no mention of the replay and there are fixtures on there from seven days ago with no result. But then why bother with any county final results on page 212? And can it really be that difficult in these days of iPhones and blogging software to keep these things up-to-date?

Spreading a little joy and happiness

It’s almost compulsory to diss the All Star awards, so it’s doubtful whether the people who select the winners would be moved by any praise at all, let alone from a lone(ly) Déise-serving blogger. Still, it needs to be said: they did good this year. Giving an award to John Mullane was a no-brainer, but there was always going to be scope for leaving out Michael Walsh, an attitude that yerra, Waterford have already won one they’d better not get notions above their station – this despite Walsh being even more deserving than Mullane on the basis of performances. So no complaints from Waterford or Galway, or Dublin even where they must view Alan McCrabbe’s gong as increasing evidence of the progress in the game. In fact, the most moaning will be from Tipperary, where four awards from thirteen nominations will have echoes of Waterford’s angst over our 1-from-10 return in 1998. Then there is Kilkenny, where every slight is nurtured with Homeric zeal. Only six All Stars. Expect Cody to use that as a rallying call as they go for the five-in-a-row.

Top heavy Stars

It’s a sign of how far Waterford have come over the last decade that I can manage to be a little disappointed at the amount of nominations we received for the 2009 All Stars. This philosophy of stuffing the nominations with nearly everyone who played in the All-Ireland final then filling the gaps with a handful of AN Other’s is enough to give you a dose of gas. Thirteen nominations for Tipperary? Why didn’t they just go the whole hog and give one to Benny Dunne?

Having said that, it’s hard to argue with an All-Ireland final that was for the ages. And nominations are really only worthwhile to players who have never had a nomination, so Noel Connors should be pleased at the national recognition. For the rest of them,  Clinton Hennessy and Tony Browne will be under no illusions. Hennessy’s chances, slim enough to begin with, would have been snuffed out by PJ Ryan’s match-winning performance in the All-Ireland final. And Tony Browne will probably look on it as a lifetime achievement nomination. Don’t expect to see him anywhere other than Waterford on the big night.

Which leaves two men standing. John Mullane is a lock. Guilt about his being overlooked last year should override any concerns about his wild performance in the semi-final against Kilkenny. He might even get Hurler of the Year, what with the whiff of sulphur that is lingering around Tommy Walsh (which means Lar Corbett will probably win it, but we can hope).

The only likely variable then is the fate of Michael Walsh. I’ve learned over the years not to look for conspiracy theories, not to see slights on Waterford where there are none – I was being sincere in the previous post when saying that Brian Corcoran was entitled to his opinion, however crass and hurtful it might be. But should Walsh, in spite of a string of stupendous performances,  be squeezed out by the need to garland the All-Ireland finalists further, one will be rather vexed.

Full list of nominations here.

Never gonna give you up

Michael Owen’s later-than-late winner against City in yesterday’s Manchester derby was a blow on so many levels to Liverpool fans. I’m firmly convinced Alex Ferguson would never have signed Owen had he started his career out with Everton, and delight at the dismay felt by Reds, while secondary to that he would have felt on snatching the three points, would have vindicated the signing in Ferguson’s mind.

So while it’s stating the obvious, it bears repetition: we don’t have to put up with this kind of trauma in the GAA. Sure, there have been a handful of players like Larry Tompkins and Shay Fahy who have gone on to success that must have galled the supporters of their original counties. Indeed, I’ve seen it suggested that no less a person than the legendary Mick Roche is from Waterford. But these are the exceptions that prove the rule. Imagine John Mullane donning the black-and-amber. Then, once you’ve mopped up the puke, be grateful for the amateur ethos of the GAA.

Counties That I Don’t Hate – Down

(No 2 in a series of 2)

Picture it. Waterford. 1991. Since we had won our first ever title in 1929, we had managed to win something – anything – in every decade. Until the 1980’s, that is, when we had not only won nothing but had plumbed the depths of Division Three hurling and been massacred in our three Munster final appearances. We’d even had the privilege of watching the team implode live on national television in the 1989 final. Not a good time to be following the Déise.

The 80’s had been a grim time for the GAA. An All-Ireland hurling semi-final had been attended by a mere nine thousand souls (Galway – Cork in 1985) and the Ulster and Connacht football championships were utterly bankrupt – the champions of those provinces had not beaten a team from Leinster or Munster since Galway in 1973. It’s hard to sustain interest in a sport when there is so little competition among all teams in general and from your own in particular. Add in the thrill of Italia ‘90, and people were asking in all seriousness where the GAA was to go from here.

The first step in the rehabilitation of the GAA came from Meath, or specifically the sensational clash between Meath and Dublin in the 1991 Leinster championship that captured the imagination of a nation. It was so all-consuming that even my mother sat down to watch the fourth and decisive match. I had developed a loathing of the Royal County in the preceding years, fuelled by paternal links with Cork and the cast of, er, characters that populated Sean Boylan’s team. Every match you’d watch hoping they’d trip up, every time they’d sail close to the wind, and every time they’d squeeze through. They were behind for most of the semi-final against Roscommon but with a mixture of grit, nerve and (I can admit this nearly 20 years on) talent, they were ahead at the finish. Another failure from the Connacht crew. It was galling, and all the more compelling for that.

Meanwhile in the other half of the draw, Kerry had sucker-punched a previously dominant Cork to come out of Munster. No one was thinking they were world beaters – the hiding they had taken in the 1990 final and the less-than-stellar manner in which they had disposed of Limerick saw to that – but they were still Kerry, right? Yes, they were and while Down had a cute record of never having lost to Kerry in the championship, they were still from Ulster and thus were going to fill their appointed role as the Munster team’s bitch. Even leading for much of the game did not change that. Had Tyrone not done the same in 1986?

Then it happened. It may not have played out exactly as I remember it, but the sentiment is what matters. A slick Down move saw Peter Withnall put clear through on Charlie Nelligan and he smashed the ball to the net with aplomb. Suddenly Down were in a winning position and they never faltered in the remaining time, belief that they would do it coursing through every action. Watching it at home, I was gobsmacked. A minnow could put it up to one of the kingpins of Gaelic games and succeed.

Five weeks later Down were back in Croke Park against the evil Meed, and it was clear they meant business. The sea of red and black that rippled across Hill 16 was utterly inspirational, one Tricolour-wielding fool only slightly marring the beauty. Down duly shot down Meath, even withstanding one of those famous zombie-like comebacks. For the first time in my lifetime, a team who had no expectation at the start of the year to winning the All-Ireland had won the All-Ireland.

A year later another county would unexpectedly taste success.  I genuinely don’t think this is a coincidence. Could Donegal and Derry have won Sam Maguire if Down had not shown them the way? And why should such a transmission of belief stop at the Ulster border? Since then, I’ve always had a soft spot for Down. They showed the rest of the GAA world that it could be done. And more importantly, they showed me that it could be done, something has sustained me to this day.

€15,000 worth of prune juice

How long before a bandwagon becomes a bandwagon can you jump on the bandwagon to avoid being labelled a bandwagon jumper? While  recently attending the RSC for the first time in literally a decade, it never entered my head that the Blues might be involved in a final there only a few weeks later. Yet victory over UCD in the League Cup semi-final and the latest gimmick from the FAI to try and get some razzmatazz going means the final against Bohemians will be in the RSC.

Tickets will probably be like hens teeth, and I’m not going to bust my hump trying to acquire them even though that fleeting appearance at the RSC probably puts me in the top 50% of entitlement. What struck me about the media coverage of the final is how the prize fund is so prominent. Even the Blues’ website, surely run by people who are not in it for the money, couldn’t resist salivating over the €15,000.

Imagine what a team like Waterford United could do with that money! I was reminded of my (ahem) obligations as a Waterford man by an appeal on WLR in May of last year. The gist of what was being said was that if Waterford folk turned out in sufficient numbers the club would have the money to buy better players which would lead to more success and better players and so on in a virtuous cycle. That €15,000, allied with the full house that will be in the RSC next month, will certainly go a long way, right?

The problem is that there is only one place such money would go, and that is on players wages. Alan Sugar referred to it as the ‘prune juice effect‘. Any success on the part of the Blues would be the ruination of someone else. It should be a salutory lesson for those who want the GAA to renumerate the players in some fashion. The logic that assumes that the GAA can just lob each of the players a few bob and nothing else will change is plain wrong. If there is any differentiation between wages, and I don’t think anyone is seriously suggesting Colm Cooper should get the same amount of cash as a Kilkenny footballer, then you are leaving yourself open to the prune juice effect. There are ways around this – the franchise system they have in the United States springs to mind, or some variant on the IRFU’s central contracts – but these are revolutionary changes in the association. Better those though than the free-for-all that is soccer.

How do Nemeton do it?

Tonight the Munster Under-21 final will be broadcast live on TG4. It’s not exactly a trek to Fraher Field to cover the match for Nemeton from their base in An Rinn, but there doesn’t seem to be any part of the country in to which their reach does not extend to cover live sport. They are even showing eleven League of Ireland matches. So why is it that big daddy up in Montrose seems incapable of such coverage, to the extent that when Bohemians played Red Bull Salzburg in the Champions League qualifiers they felt the need to play the beal bocht to justify not showing it? 

The perverse thing is that coverage of the big matches is so all pervasive these days that it probably harms attendances – the GAA were likely relieved to get a round-ish figure of 30,000 at the match last Sunday – yet for all-ticket affairs like tonight’s match in Dungarvan we have to rely on an independent broadcaster from beyond the Pale. It all comes from the licence fee eventually, but if Nemeton didn’t exist would they be invented?

Irish Wildlife – Boyo Redneckus

(No 2 in a series of 2)

Boyo Redneckus

What It’s Called:
Patrick, Paddy, Pat, Patsy, Padraig, Paudie or Ultan.

Where It’s Found:
Working in Civil Service departments, studying engineering or pharmacy at UCD or carrying a shovel on building sites. Found in quantity in the Ierne ballroom and Barry’s Hotel (“we’ve got all the stars; there’s Declan Nerney, Louise Morrisey AND Big Tom too!”), swaying from side to side and wondering if it’s going to vomit Guinness all over the dancefloor. Oddly enough, Boyo Redneckus almost never is found alone, but congregates into a pack (‘the lads’) with other members of his species to engage in behaviour termed ‘craic’.

What It Wears:
All its clothes are brown: corduroy pants, sweaters, shoes, duffle coat, jacket. Has a brown suit it wears into work. Also wears polyester shirts from Dunnes with grimy collars and strong smell of BO on underarms. Boyo Redneckus knows that it’s time to change its underwear when they stick to the ceiling when it throws them up against it.

What It Says:
“Ah, ya boyo”; “we had the craic”; “did ya meet the lads”; “what’s a Kerryman like you doing in Dublin”; and “Jaysus, I’ve a sore head on me” are common utterances.

Where It Lives:
Sometimes in digs, but only until it meets up with the lads and rents a flat (pad) in Rathmines, Ranelagh, Phibsborough, Drumcondra or on the North Circular Road. Here, it empties its rucksack of (brown) clothes onto the bedroom floor, pisses on the bathroom floor, burns holes in the living room carpet with Major cigarettes, pulls the sink off the wall (for the crack) and entertains his girlfriends at weekends.

What It Drinks:
Guinness, Guinness, Guinness. Is often seen carrying six packs and naggins of whiskey out of the pub at closing time. This is because there is usually some crack back at Padraig’s flat.

Where It Drinks:
Has its favourite pub in which it meets the lads, usually close to its flat. Drink often ends up on the floor of it’s bathroom.

What It Drives:
A battered-up Opel or Escort or Toyota which it drives down home every few weeks with a few of the lads with its washing in the boot for its mother to do. Sticker on the back says “97 MO SAM”, barely concealing the hastily torn “96 MO SAM” sticker beneath. Saint Christopher emblem usually found stuck to dashboard.

What It Watches:
Any GAA match, Nationwide, and porn movies which it shows on Pat’s Aldi-bought DVD player.

Leisure Activities:
Can be generally summed up by the phrase “having crack”. This usually involves drinking large quantities of alcohol and getting sick. Enjoys staying in, drinking mugs of instant coffee and smoking John Player Blue cigarettes, crashing out in someone else’s pad and groping some girl behind the couch.

Favourite Food:
Bunburgers and chips, take away Chinese meals, Mars bars, crisps, peanuts, biscuits. Exclusively shops at the local 24 hour shop for chops and rashers after the pub shuts.

Political Views:
Naive. Votes Fianna Fail, mainly because its local candidate lives in the same town as he does in the country. Most virulent political views are expressed in the pubs, e.g. by singing ‘The Four Green Fields’. 

Irish Wildlife – Boggus Gaagaa

(No 1 in a series of 2)

Back in the 1980’s, The Phoenix had a recurring funnies feature called ‘Irish Wildlife’ where it took a David Attenborough-style gaze at the characters that populated the landscape. Some of the species featured are either near extinct (Spucus Hystericus, the fanatically anti-abortion Holy Joe) or completely extinct (Lefticus Sinister, the Marxist constantly plotting againt the capitalist state from a bedroom in it’s mother’s house). But some have evolved, not least the two characters most associated with the GAA. So for the purposes of posterity I’ve decided to post them up on the blog, with a few edits to reflect this evolution.

Boggus Gaagaa

What It’s Called:
John Joe, Jim Joe, Ambrose, Aloysius, Eamon Ned, Con, Jacko, Micko, Donno, Sonny (even if fifty years old), etc.

Where It’s Found:
Usually found hob-nobbing with various GAA officials and often a priest at football and hurling matches on a Sunday. Leaps off the sideline when a player is injured, and waddles across the pitch with a sponge in one hand while it’s other hand stops it’s jacket from flapping around. Has not been sighted at Croke Park on All-Ireland final day recently, since it is out with a man at the County Board who gave it a ticket behind a pillar in the Hogan Stand back in ‘85

What It Wears:
Green blazers with the GAA cross on the breast pocket and with (sometimes) a pioneer pin or ‘fainne’ jostling for attention on the lapel. Wears a tightly-knotted tie which always manages to be totally askew, while its nylon shirt invariably becomes dislodged while it’s trampling across the football field, revealing a string vest and an acre of pasty white skin which hasn’t seen sunlight in donkeys years. When it stands in as an umpire it wears what resembles an artificial inseminator’s white coat. On trips to Dublin it wears its best “Sundah suit” (circa 1950) the trousers of which are hoisted to chin level with the aid of elasticated braces. Always sounds like there’s a pound of pennies clattering around in its pocket.

About It’s Family:
Has a clutch of daughters in the Civil Service, the Mater Hospital or studying to be teachers. Has strained relationship with sons, however, as none of them have made the county team despite years of “encouragement” from the da.

What It Says:
At a match: “on ya boy, ya”; “Yeowwww!”; “ah jaysus ya couldn’t have dat”; “fair play”; he wouldn’t run de bar in de pub”; “g’wan, g’wan, g’wan!”. At GAA functions it always manages to get in the oul ‘cupla focail’. During post mortems of matches it played brilliantly in – from the sidelines – it can be seen perching its belly on the bar-counter and pontificating about unfit players.

What It Works At:
Works in local government, as a national schoolteacher, a publican, or the local garda sergeant. Some members of the species are travelling reps for companies which manufacture roasted peanuts or toilet bowls, and usually have a faded GAA Centenary sticker on the back window of their ‘83 reg Datsun.

Its Politics:
Boggus Gaaga is basically entrenched in Civil War politics, and has inherited from its ancestors the instinctual habit of always voting Fianna Fail. Holds severe reactionary views on abortion, pluralism, the corrective use of the birch or whatever Father Doody (“a great footballer in his day”) tells him to think. Thinks DeValera is a saint, with Jack Lynch not far behind. Has “a lot of time” for Bertie Ahern, one of the few jackeens he has time for. Is full of half-baked tales when filled with drink e.g. that Dan Breen once hid from the Black and Tans in a bread bin in his mother’s house.

Leisure Activities
Always picks youngsters from its own parish when it gets to be a minor selector for the county team, and arranges trips to New York for them to play the Mother Macree XV in Brooklyn. Its family has a great devotion to the Holy Rosary, and is also a member of the Knights of Mary at Knock, a member of SPUC and the local Fianna Fail Cumann. A regular visitor to Ballinspittle in its time.