Monday, March 29, 2010
WHEN you’re in a hole the best thing to do is ... stop digging.
The GAA management committee meeting last Friday considered the Irish rugby team’s emergency use of Nemo Rangers’ facilities recently, and they are to ask the Cork County Board to look into the matter.
You may remember that Declan Kidney’s men trained at the GAA club about a month ago when their first-choice practice venue was frozen over.
GAA President Christy Cooney said the committee would have to be "satisfied of the facts" – who exactly met here, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith? – about Ireland training at Nemo.
This is a) a mistake and b) the GAA shooting itself in the foot as only the GAA can.
First, Nemo Rangers’ impressive facilities are run by a separate company, not Nemo Rangers, thus obviating even a technicality on which the GAA club could be burned at the sta.. er, punished.
More importantly, Nemo’s facilities have been used on a regular basis by Munster Rugby for quite a long time, yet that has never been an issue with Croke Park in the past. Why does GAA headquarters suddenly feel the need to act? Or is it more accurate to describe this as a need to be seen to act?
Anyone would think that somewhere within the GAA there’s a stratum of backwoodsmen who would like nothing better than a return to vigilance committees and the Ban, a group of troglodytes which needs to be appeased with some kind of sacrifice.
The GAA authorities shouldn’t need to be reminded of a glaring contradiction in their stance, but we love to help out, so we’ll point it out.
Much has been made of the rugby/soccer windfall which accrued to the Association from opening Croker, and there has been quite the trumpeting about dispersing that money to the clubs, the grass roots of the GAA.
What does GAA HQ expect the clubs to do with that money, though? Easy: they’ll build or improve their facilities.
What happens with facilities? Easy: people want to use them.
What are clubs expected to do when people want to use their facilities? Not so easy. Following the logic of the Nemo situation, the facilities can’t be used for other sports. Does that cover people getting fit for those other sports? Are clubs going to have to get people to swear solemnly that their bench presses and triceps pulls aren’t building muscles for deployment in games other than hurling or Gaelic football?
We anticipate a lot of frantic conversations in GAA club gyms and halls, with middle-aged matrons being asked to sign declarations that aerobic improvements brought about by the yoga class they’re attending will not be squandered on "other sports".
Of course, the alternative would be to have those nice facilities standing idle. But unsullied.
At least there’s consistency from other sports when it comes to using their facilities. At least there would be, if it wasn’t for those pesky ecumenists in Cork Constitution, which isn’t too far away from Nemo Rangers, as it happens.
Con is cheek by jowl with Pairc Ui Rinn, and over the years GAA clubs which have faced county finals in that stadium have approached the rugby club with a view to warming up there before going into battle.
Our understanding is that Con have always accommodated such requests (those with long memories might remember the Blackrock hurlers training in Con many years ago, but sin scéal eile). To date there has been no foot-stamping or holding of breath at 62 Lansdowne Road as a result.
In the GAA we know there are plenty of people who would welcome a national team in any sport or discipline to train at their club.
They’d see it for what it was – an honour for their club and a compliment to their facilities – rather than what the small-minded see: some kind of threat.
Perhaps that’s the difference between the two GAAs: the GAA of Croke Park and the GAA of the club. We spoke to Fr Harry Bohan last week and he made the point that nowadays we don’t need to be told of the need for change. Our circumstances inform us of that need on a daily basis.
"We don’t need preachers or teachers to tell us what events are bringing home to us – the need for change," he said. "The GAA must learn that as well – not to wait until the whole thing falls down around them."
Well said by Fr Harry, as usual.
Ach cé tá ag éisteacht?
Is anybody listening?
* Contact: michael.moynihan@examiner.ie; Twitter: MikeMoynihanEx
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