John Fogarty: Scant regard for GAA among authorities

THUMBS UP: Four-year-old Kilmallock supporter Fiadh Earls strikes a pose ahead of Sunday’s Limerick SHC clash with Ahane at LIT Gaelic Grounds. Killmallock won 2-22 to 3-13. Picture: Matt Browne/Sportsfile

It’s the biggest cultural and sporting organisation in the country. Any right-minded politician should know its value for them and the country, and when it’s All-Ireland final time we all know how desperate they are to get their hands on tickets (hello, Michelle Mulherin).

Gaelic Games is essential viewing for TDs and senators if only because it is essential for many of them to be seen at them. They are the quintessential event junkies but you would have thought by now they might have picked up information as they went along to these occasions.

That clearly isn’t the case when one Dublin politician was infamously unaware that the club playing in front of them in Parnell Park a few years ago hailed from their constituency. And it certainly doesn’t appear to be the case going by how the GAA — and by extension — sports have been treated during the pandemic.

The mixed messages from the previous government, both Leo Varadkar and Simon Harris contradicting the roadmap regarding the possibility of spectators, only confused people. Varadkar’s unprompted claim that there could be All-Ireland senior championships behind closed doors before the GAA had even revised the season was a perfect example of his penchant for trying to deliver a scoop, something current Taoiseach Micheál Martin is quickly beginning to discover.

Then again, Martin’s surprise on the floor of the Dáil in the National Convention Centre that players and management were included in the crowd limit of 200 spectators wasn’t helpful either.

At least Michael Lowry and others like Mattie McGrath were representing their base when querying the crowd restriction.

Friday’s details of the lockdown in Kildare, Laois, and Offaly well and truly confirmed the lowly place of Gaelic games in government circles. We don’t mention other sports because the inter-county reference in the document pertaining to the added restrictions in the three counties is clearly aimed at the GAA: “Inter-county training (max 15 people) and fixtures may continue behind closed doors.”

It might be a generic measure irrespective of the time of season but anyone with half an idea about the GAA should have realised that inter-county training has been prohibited until September 14. Besides that, it doesn’t make sense. Why slap a limit of 15 at training and yet allow fixtures behind closed doors to go ahead where we know 48 players are permitted within the pitch enclosure and several more outside it?

And why can inter-county teams train fully and club sides only take part in non-contact preparations?

No wonder the GAA were left scratching their heads. When in doubt, do nothing, which is exactly what they told the three county boards to do by postponing all games scheduled this weekend. Instead of being able to take the National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) at their word, their own Covid-19 advisory group had to convene yesterday to interpret what was actually meant.

The GAA’s body are getting used to being left to their own devices. For two months now they have been waiting on NPHET to tell them what in a sports context is a close and a casual contact of somebody who has tested positive for Covid-19. In the meantime, they had come up with their own definition of their own.

In yesterday’s Irish Examiner, GAA advisory group member Professor Mary Horgan was diplomatic when she suggested NPHET had to prioritise formalising other documents such as the return to school. Clearly, it isn’t an urgent matter and that’s fine — sure Gaelic Games and most sports take place outside where it is largely safe — but it seems as if so many things like football and hurling games are being conflated as threats to the opening of schools.

Rather than being a danger, the GAA is intrinsically linked to schools. “When the schools closed on March 13, we were ready to shut things down,” said GAA director-general Tom Ryan back in May about the decision to cease all activity.

“So much of what we do is centred around kids and schools that it just wasn’t going to be sustainable for us to carry on.”

Consequently, the success of classes taking place again impacts on Gaelic games. In the meantime, was it too much to ask that players, management, match officials, media and stewards not be counted in the 200 total? Surely that would have been an appropriate bump, to free up 80 to 100 individuals for actual spectators? Given his shock that the participants were considered by Public Health to be among the crowd, you would hope Martin made that case when he met with NPHET last week.

It would have been enough of a compromise to keep demoralised supporters and county board officials going for the remainder of the month.

If he did, it wasn’t strong enough. In light of the spike of cases in the three counties, it’ll be said it couldn’t be done but in light of the scant regard shown to the GAA last Friday was it truly considered in the first place?

GPA plan will face opposition

GPA CEO Paul Flynn, right, and GPA chairman Séamus Hickey. Picture: Piaras Ó Mídheach, Sportsfile

Rightfully, the reaction to the Gaelic Players Association’s (GPA) proposal to cut the inter-county season has been largely positive.

It is a major step.

They aren’t doing it out of the goodness of their heart, of course.

Six months without interruption is a tasty prospect and, notwithstanding club league action, they aren’t suggesting to share the summer but take it over.

Their plan deserves serious consideration but they know the GAA fixtures review task force they present it to on August 19 aren’t keen on a split season — or at least they weren’t before the pandemic.

“Firstly, separating players entirely from their clubs for over half the year would not be desirable,” the body wrote of the split season last December. “County players need to stay connected to their community and need breaks from the inter-county set up. Neither would clubs be likely to support such a move — whatever the drawbacks of the current ‘windows” approach may be, at least it ensures some visibility of the county player with his club in the spring.

“Secondly, any such move would require playing the All-Ireland finals at the end of June (or mid-July at the latest). In a promotional context, this would not be in the best interests of the Association overall. It would mean over half of the season without any inter-county GAA action.

“But most importantly, having looked at various samples of how a split season might work, the task force did not see how any extra weekends for the club game (between the end of April and the commencement of provincial club championships in October) would be created by doing so.”

The GPA have a battle on their hands.

Don’t Portumna wish they were elsewhere

Joe Canning’s red card against Sarsfields was rescinded. Photo by David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile

There won’t be much sympathy for Portumna after they were relegated to senior B following another heavy defeat on Sunday, especially as they once again finished the game with 13 men.

But here’s the thing — Joe Canning’s red card against Sarsfields was rescinded. It was adjudged that he shouldn’t have been dismissed. Had he stayed on the field, would his young nephew Jack have gotten involved in a later incident and also been sent off? Would Portumna have lost the game?

It’ll be a major source of angst to a club that won four All-Irelands in six seasons in the 2000s to be demoted.

Portumna had been on the slide in recent times so it won’t have surprised too many that they are out of the top tier in 2021 but this year luck abandoned them.

Portumna knew what the stakes were when they began the competition and many other famed clubs have been dropped in crueller circumstances.

However, this year they will look forlornly across the border to Clare or down to Waterford and Wexford where relegation has been paused due to the exceptional circumstances in an exceptional year.

Removing demotion might suggest that games are being played simply for the sake of it. The safety net for the senior teams, the glass ceiling above the intermediate teams, it might as well be a frozen season.

But there is a sense of parity to keeping things as they are.

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