John Fogarty: GAA's provincial faultlines now clearly emerging

For all this talk of league championships and provincial conferences, might it be a case of the grass being greener on the other side?

Mon, 15 Mar, 2021 - 19:30

John Fogarty

Credit to Dessie Farrell, he is a realist. His only agenda right now is Dublin but his 13 years as Gaelic Players Association chief executive would have given him a grander view.

Having delivered the county’s 10th consecutive Leinster SFC title in November and their 30th straight victory in the competition, he has now called for the provincial structure to be scrapped.

“I definitely think the competition structure is the big one,” the Dublin senior football manager told a podcast last week.

“And this might not go down well, particularly in Ulster, but I am no longer a fan of the provincial system. I think if we could move beyond that and even experiment for a season or two, be it an open draw or whatever we come up with and there’s enough bright people in the organisation to land on something that I think would work and be very successful.”

That opinion doesn’t tally with that of his predecessor Jim Gavin who regularly defended the Leinster SFC. “I’m a traditionalist and love the provincial competition,” he said in 2014. “It takes great gravity in the Dublin set-up and it’s a competition we want to win.”

Two years later, he said the players shared his passion: “They want to retain the Delaney Cup. It’s something that they’ve spoken about. It means a lot to them.”

In 2019 before his team won that championship by an aggregate of 57 points across three games, the tune hadn’t changed: “The Leinster championship means a lot to Dublin players, means a lot to Dublin GAA.”

Gavin was often accused of being disingenuous when speaking about Leinster opposition when in hindsight he might have been speaking the truth about how much the province meant to the group given the margin of their victories notwithstanding the gaping gulf in class, of course.

Bear in mind that Gavin as a player knew the value of a provincial medal. Seven years passed between his third in 1995 and fourth as a panellist in 2002 as Kildare and Meath ruled supreme. But then there was that same gap for Farrell between his fifth and sixth.

Of the team that he fielded to beat Meath by 21 points four months ago, only Stephen Cluxton and Michael Fitzsimons have failed to win a Leinster title.

At the other end of the spectrum but on the same weekend, Cavan and Tipperary’s players were winning their county’s first in 23 and 85 years respectively. Those victories, though, can’t be held up as shining examples that the provincial championships should be untouched. That heady notion was concocted based on a doubly historic surreal afternoon in an atypical knockout All-Ireland SFC in an unprecedented year. Chances of it happening again? You’ll be waiting.

The men who made those days, Mickey Graham and David Power, also realise that given they have expressed they are open to change and the current championship structure being altered.

But for all this talk of league championships and provincial conferences, might it be a case of the grass being greener on the other side? “Don’t punish 25% of the association because we don’t have our ducks in a row elsewhere,” said Oisín McConville of a possible scenario if the Northern Ireland Assembly allows club games back while the GAA maintains its all-island approach. The same could be said for the Ulster SFC — why break what doesn’t need fixing?

Without the provinces as elements of the Championship, football won’t fall apart but there is tangible risk demoting local rivalries. We always come back to the late Ulster GAA secretary Danny Murphy’s line that underpins the allure of the organisation: “What you need is competitive games that are relatively close to the people who are going to them.”

Improved infrastructure has made Ireland a lot smaller but stratifying the Championship on the basis of ability and not proximity does carry risk. And as the GAA slowly recovers from this pandemic, the extra costs associated with travel mightn’t be too welcome.The provinces are imperfect but transforming them into eight-team conferences would be a compromise, not one Ulster would be too happy with, losing a county to another province every year, but at least all nine counties would all start in their own championship.

Many in Ulster would consider it the lesser of two evils compared to the league-based championship, which would make the provinces spring competitions. “That’s downgrading the Ulster championship to a glorified McKenna Cup and I don’t think that will fly in Ulster,” Antrim chairman Ciarán McCavana told this newspaper last month.

As the GAA considers its inter-county football future, to be bold should be a goal but to be pragmatic must be a priority. When provincial titles are 10-a-penny to one county but precious to others, a middle ground is required.

Regaining Patrick’s Day should be priority

Through no fault of their own, Wednesday marks the second successive St Patrick’s Day without any GAA action. At least Réabhlóid GAA, looking back at hurling’s revolution years of the 1990s, is being repeated on TG4 at 5.55pm but there’s a certain sadness that another national holiday is not being marked by the national game.

Not the way they intended it but last year was the first since 1987 that the senior club finals weren’t staged on St Patrick’s Day. As an incremental step towards the calendar year, they were played in January and were to be replaced on March 17 by the All-Ireland U20 football semi-finals. But then came the pandemic.

The plan back in 2014 was for two of Dublin’s Allianz League games to fill the vacancy. “The ideal situation would be that Dublin would play the All-Ireland champions in both codes on St Patrick’s Day,” said then GAA president Liam O’Neill.

Now before anybody quips about splitting Dublin, O’Neill added that were the Dubs the Sam Maguire Cup holders then, they would face the league champions. The thought of Dublin and Kerry facing off in Croke Park on Wednesday is an appealing one but then taking in a junior C game right now would whet the appetite.

At the time, this column felt that the GAA shouldn’t tailor the sequencing of the league to suit Dublin. It certainly would have done nothing to dissuade the belief that they receive preferential treatment, but then the Dubs didn’t ask for it.

It may just be the league semi-finals, finals, or the start of a league-based Championship that will mark St Patrick’s Day next year. Restoring it to the centre of the calendar would be most welcome.

Carry on hurling the priority as ash dieback hits hard

Such is the severity of the ash dieback situation in the UK, that officials have banned the sale of the trees.

Transport of live ash has also been stopped, which may have repercussions for the hurley makers in the North such as Antrim legend Terence “Sambo” McNaughton.

However, there would be appear to be nothing preventing the transfer of the product from the Republic of Ireland. Then again, it’s a commodity in short supply south of the border due to an infestation which was first detected here almost 10 years ago from imported ash.

It’s estimated half the 750,000 hurleys produced in Ireland every year are made of Irish ash. Due to the reliance on imports, the GAA has invested in developing hybrid hurleys as a contingency plan in the event of any trade ban.

“Given the way technology is moving on, how man-made fibres are moving on, that’s realistic,” said the GAA’s Pat Daly back in December 2016. “It’s something we could be looking at. Ash would be moulded on the bas. The rest would be man-made, fibreglass. Ash would be glued on then.”

Already in the UK, calls are going out from the Royal Tank Regiment for ash so as to continue the production of swagger sticks, those short pieces of wood carried by officers in uniform to symbolise authority — one of them you might have seen Sergeant Major Bloomer holding in Carry on England.

Carry on hurling is the priority.