Penalty panto had to stop — or end in tragedy

Beyond the outrage, the GAA had to curb a dangerous situation, writes Donal Óg Cusack.

It was Saturday. Paddy and Dinny got up early and swept the floor of their lean-to. They were expecting visitors. Paddy and Dinny had lived long lives. They had seen down friends and mourned loved ones. They had lived through recession and wealth and then austerity. They had seen the little country scarred by The Brits, The Troubles, The Banks, The Church and The Bondholders.

Now the worst thing ever to happen in Irish history had happened to Paddy and Dinny.

They lived off a rabbit trail, near a cow path at the end of a boreen at the back end of Longford. They were famous though. The GAA had sold some games to Sky. Paddy and Dinny didn’t have Sky. They had been through so much in their lives and now this. The nation wept. Joe Duffy held the nations hand and said, go on, let it all out.

They were expecting visitors. The wireless and the papers were on about them the whole time. The country really, really cared. Paddy and Dinny made tea and laid out plates of Rich Tea biscuits. People would be coming soon. A convoy of people carrying gifts. Here, take this satellite dish. Listen, we got you a digital subscription. Come with us in the car to the club to watch on the big screen. No, let us drive you to the pub. Here’s a picture of The Hoff in his red speedos. He’s the male presenter, you know.

Nobody came. There was a Brand New Worst Thing Ever. The Charge of the Bellyache Brigade had changed direction. The GAA was ending the greatest spectacle in sport. Twenty metre frees taken from 13 metres.

‘Feck it,’ said Dinny to Paddy, ‘just go online on the iPad mini and buy a subscription, we don’t want to miss it if one of these frees hits a fella in the windpipe or drives his testicle up to his belly, do we?’

‘We do not,’ said Paddy, ‘have another biscuit.’

The best thing about the GAA is everybody in the country thinks they own it and have the right to an opinion that has to be taken seriously because, well, it’s the GAA, and we are Irish.

The worst thing about the GAA is that everybody in the country thinks they own it and have the right to an opinion that has to be taken seriously, even if it is actually backed up by nothing.

On the penalty/free debate, I value your opinion more if you have stood in the way of a ball driven by a fit, strong inter-county hurler who has found the sweet spot. I value your opinion even more if in the fraction of a second you have to judge the trajectory off the shot and adjust your body position and your stick you have somehow miscalculated and have taken a ball full on to the body. And then faced another one.

I respect your opinion even if you escaped like Stephen O’Keeffe did just with an amazingly painful bruise. Those bruises. Sometimes white at the epicentre and yellow and black all around. Sometimes the seam of the sliotar has left its pattern on you, sometimes it has just ricocheted off you like a rubber bullet. Maybe the sliotar caught you in the balls, on the heart, in the throat and left you in trouble. Whatever happened, you know what you are talking about.

The rest of the chorus might as well be telling the sedated, bleeding bull in the ring to lighten up. Sure, bullfighting is a great spectacle.

Most practising inter-county goalies won’t admit that the prospect of taking a sliotar full on bothers them. Partly because it doesn’t. It happens. And partly because when you face one, you don’t want the lad lifting and striking the ball to think that you have an ounce of doubt in you.

Yet, when some of the best goalies I played against are worried about where it will all end, I know the game has a problem. I would use the technique if I had a team to manage. Same with Davy Fitz or Brendan Cummins, I am sure. You do everything. They use it against you. You use it against them. But I don’t hear Brendan or Davy saying the new free is a great spectacle and sure let them at it.

I understand Tony Kelly is top class at the new penalty style. But the end of the story is that somebody was going to get hurt. The big picture is that rules get changed in order to prevent people getting hurt, in order to protect us from our own competitive selves. Hurling was a better spectacle when fellas wore no helmets. Players were more recognisable and looked more dashing. We didn’t wait until somebody got killed live on TV to introduce mandatory helmets. Ditto mouthguards for footballers. Spectacle comes after safety.

The key point to be made is that has been about parochialism from the start. Sadly mainly from my own county. Anthony Nash perfected a skill which exploited an anomaly in the rules of the game. Fair play to him, to do that takes imagination, talent and dedication. We know though that in the GAA, trends run like bushfire, and that pretty soon, every county and club in the country would be trying it and every kid in his back garden would be attempting it with a little brother or sister like a sitting duck between the imagined goalposts.

It was good for Cork though, so those who (unfairly on Anthony Nash) christened it the Nash Free or Penalty argued that from Ringy to DJ, fellas had been doing it anyway, and sure it was all an anti-Cork thing. It was clientele politics at its cheapest. The GAA is rotten with clientele politicians. Those few who could see the bigger picture were left to clean up the mess after a motion to tidy up the rule was scuppered at Congress last year.

The big picture politicians could see the aftermath when a child loses an eye having had a ball driven at him in a street, garden or in a field, when a club player has a testicle pinballed up into his gut. It wouldn’t be the Nash Free or Nash Penalty then. It would be the GAA’s irresponsibility. Rightly so. The GAA didn’t make a mess of this. The clientele politicians did. Ducking and diving for the benefit of the gallery as usual. If only the giants who founded the GAA could see all this scuttling about in the corners. Of men and mice. Seeing what was coming, somebody within the GAA last week took the smart decision to tell referees to permit the “Stephen O’ Keeffe Charge” as well as the “Nash Free.” They fast forwarded the problem close to its absurd end. Now, mid-championship, we have to act. It’s a band-aid but it’s necessary.

When we were kids in Cloyne, the father would take myself and the brothers out into the hurling field at the back of the house to practice. The field where Ringy played. We learned to be sharp, because if we weren’t, he’d drive a ball at us to wake us up. I was never afraid in goals after that but I remember in 2003, Donal O’Grady kitting me up like a batter in cricket with every type of padding imaginable and getting lads to drive balls at me as hard as they could from three or four yards away. He wanted me to not just be unafraid but to stand up tall and take it. I had to make as big an obstruction of myself as possible. The pads would get me into the habit. Come game time I was on my own when I had to rush at a forward and throw myself in the path of his shot.

The odd thing was that I was never afraid but having balls driven at me with the pads on made me think that there was some element of madness about being a hurling keeper. We need protecting from ourselves.

Stephen O’Keeffe did a mad, brave thing last Sunday. He put himself on the line by exploiting the anomaly which was left for him to exploit. If the free-taker had a loophole, so had the goalie. Good on him.

The GAA had to act. The next step is getting off the line quicker, throwing yourself into the air earlier and hitting the oncoming player full on as he leaves himself wide open with his eye on the ball and wrists cocked to swing. Great spectacle. The steps being proposed are a sticky plaster. Enough for now.

Until a longer-term solution is found, the clientele politicians need to stop stirring up the bellyache brigade and think of the big picture. It’s not about exploiting a marginal advantage until somebody gets badly hurt. It’s about common sense.

In the long term, I think we need to be radical. The founding fathers of the GAA were radical. A penalty still needs to be a penalty. My own proposal would be that when given a penalty the taker will be able to indicate to the referee before taking which of two options he would prefer. A ground shot from the 13 metre line with just the goalkeeper on the line. A lift and strike with the ball being placed anywhere in the half circle beyond the 20 metre line and struck before it travels over that 20 metre line.

The game develops and outgrows the rules which smart men laid down long ago. Sliotars are lighter and faster. Players are faster. Hurleys are bigger and different. Not to mention goalies’ hurleys. We need to grow and develop our thoughts at the same pace. No challenge no future.