IFA team must plan for goals
Now the soccer team has moved onto a more complete football game, which has steadily brought Ireland back to its early 1990s position among the top 15 soccer teams in the world.
IFA, however, seems to have remained true to its pressure group tradition.
It has changed its formation for the first time since 1971, but it still looks like an aggressive “bite your ankles” team.
There’s a few rule changes about picking the team, and in the chain of command, but everything still points towards the usual combative approach.
One of the major developments is placing two Sugar Beet Committee representatives on the Executive Council until 2010, the foot-balling equivalent of playing with two full forwards.
A new legal service is planned, presumably to help players who get in trouble with referees.
And the deployment of staff to Oireachtas Liaison looks a bit like the Mourinho or Wenger policy at Chelsea or Arsenal of pursuing every grievance at FA or UEFA level.
IFA makes it clear it is determined not to give away any goals on hill farming. A Committee will continue to “protect and defend” the special interests of farmers in the Cooley, Connemara, West Cork, Donegal, Kerry, North Leitrim, West Cavan, West Mayo, Sligo, Waterford, South Tipperary and Wicklow regions.
However, this IFA team, on paper, looks like it could be too busy putting the opposition under pressure, and defending, to score any goals.
Maybe that is the way it is in the game of survival in the Irish economy, and IFA has fallen victim to a siege mentality because it feels that farmers are under constant attack.
Little good would come out of such a mentality.
Farmers have to band together to defend their position, but they also have to be ready to work with other sectors.
IFA should avoid “fight to the last man” thinking, and be aware of the role of EU farmers in the big picture, building up a productive sector competitive enough to survive in a world of free trade, while also preserving the environment.
Perhaps that is the thinking behind the planned appointment of Project Teams to advance specific issues such as Nitrates, Roads, Animal Health and Welfare, and the “management’s” indication that the new priority areas are Environment, Farm Business, Services and Inputs, Farm Family, and Social Affairs.
Perhaps IFA’s new look Western Committee to represent regions with significant SAC designations will project a new image of the Association playing its role in preserving a beautiful countryside and opening it up for tourism.
The Association must take a stand on all issues that affect farmers, but it needn’t be a stand-off.
An IFA that keeps playing in its own half of the field will never get to the finals.
It’s a time of change for farmers, and they rely heavily on IFA to provide leadership, not to leave them pinned in a corner, sniping at attackers on all fronts.
