Larry Ryan: After Dublin incident, Gaelic football has been driven underground

Everything we know about the sport’s fine traditions suggested Dublin’s efforts to avoid sanction would hardly stop short of subpoenaing Susie Dent from Dictionary Corner to the DRA. Instead, they fessed up and punished themselves

BLACK MARKET BALL: Dublin manager Dessie Farrell during the 2020 All-Ireland final. This week Farrell took the fall for dealing in contraband Gaelic football. Picture: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile

At least the events of this week have brought a certain amount of clarity. They have probably taken off the table a radical solution proposed by various interest groups over the years.

We now know that if you were to ban Gaelic football altogether, if you were to stick a knife in all the footballs, as has often been proposed, it would only be driven underground.

That has always been the chief worry of concerned citizens such as hurling people — that illicit uprisings would be impossible to police.

And sure enough, these reported sightings of contraband Gaelic football have shown us there is no legislation that can possibly suppress it.

It should be no great surprise to anybody, Gaelic football’s disobedience of the laws of the land, since even the game’s own rules have minimal impact on how it is played.

If you had to identify one guiding principle that seems to unite all Gaelic football teams, it would surely be a determination to find out exactly how much you can get away with.

A certainty that there is always a greater good to be served bigger than any trivial man-made statutes.

The activities of the sport’s best-ever team should copperfasten that fundamental doctrine.

And yet, just as we discover there is no way of stopping Gaelic football, even if we wanted to, the week’s shenanigans also brought significant deviation from the way normal business is carried out in the old game.

The age-old attitude within the sport to indiscretion and punishment — something it shares with its hurling brethren — has always been: ‘Don’t do the crime, if you can’t do the time pursuing every spurious route of appeal.’

Everything we know about the sport’s fine traditions suggested Dublin’s efforts to avoid sanction would hardly stop short of subpoenaing Susie Dent from Dictionary Corner to the DRA for a debate on the definition of ‘collective training’.

Instead, they fessed up and punished themselves. And Dessie Farrell has taken the fall for bootleg ball.

Who knows? If this attitude catches on, black market Gaelic football mightn’t even need a black card.

Under the influence

Alas, this week’s controvassy didn’t come without a cost to this industry, retired Dublin great Diarmuid Connolly vowing to cancel his Independent subscription in response to the front page revelations.

Dublin legend Diarmuid Connolly: Vowed to ditch the newspaper subscription.

Connolly failed to see the news value in reporting the dawn lawbreaking of a few lads kicking a ball, an opinion echoed widely, given the general disgust out there at more grievous offences lately.

At the same time, this bafflement at media interest came just a few days after a thorough analysis in the Irish Times of the handsome benefits Dublin players can accrue as ‘influencers’.

So isn't it the market which has decided that these lads’ activities are worth keeping a close eye on, and that others are likely to copy their behaviour?

Isn’t it high time we fixed the rest of sporting world?

Still, is it worth considering what kind of sporting landscape we might have if Gaelic football was banned — if the Government made an immediate example of the sport?

The likes of Mick Galwey have made the case that the rugby team would instantly become world-beaters — the deeper talent pool would surely provide endless options when it came to finding a candidate capable of booting the ball over the sideline under a bit of pressure.

But there might be other side-effects too, without the perennial concern about the state of Gaelic football to occupy us. To what might we assign all the brainpower ordinarily spent devising ways to fix Gaelic football and its ‘structures’?

Without the need to weigh up tweaking the ‘mark’ again, might other sports be exposed to the same scrutiny and disenchantment? Could we muster the ennui to drive international change?

Might the scourge of ‘foot’ in hockey finally be addressed and think-tanks be assembled to see if there isn’t any way we could avoid having a stoppage every 10 seconds?

Would there be a push to make basketball accessible to lads under 6’6? Maybe a higher basket or a clamour for a four-point score from your own half?

Do we really need to stop everything and wait around for a tall girl to shoot in netball?

Might we finally get round to fixing sports like figure skating, by losing the judges and setting up some kind of obstacle course on the ice?

And isn’t it high time they put in place all that punch detection technology in boxing so the uninitiated have some idea how a bout is going?

You could clear up golf in an instant if you stopped sweating the small stuff and struck nearly every arcane rule from the books. Let players pick up every ball, wherever it lands, and throw it down somewhere in the vicinity, like they are taking a sideline. More importantly, let them wear tracksuits.

As for rugby, where would you start?

Paying attention to LOI TV

The debut of LOI TV last weekend wasn’t seamless, sizeable pockets of Cork melting down in rage during the opener between City and Cobh.

There were issues with the LOI TV stream of Cork City vs Cobh last week.

But by Saturday it had settled down — the internet was grand, the artificially intelligent cameras never once mistook a bald linesman’s head for the ball, and several clubs provided entertaining local commentary teams.

It helped that the powers that be had organised at least one worldie to be scored at each of the WNL games.

Andrea Agnelli recently mooted the idea of selling the last 15 minutes of Champions League ties because today’s attention spans are shot.

The modern way is to half-watch football while scrolling social, let the commentator alert you to important action, then look up for the replay.

But it doesn’t quite work like that when you’re already watching on the device you use for scrolling. And there are no replays. Gradually you find yourself sucked into this ancient unfashionable practice of actually watching the game.

So could LOITV and the likes rebuild modern attention spans?

Drinking it in with Agueroooo

It’s hard to know if we could ever live happily again without action replays, but an enjoyable Guardian feature this week reminded us that it’s not so long since we lived, relatively happily, in an information vacuum.

Where we walked around the town relying on looking at TVs through windows for score updates. Or sat at home refreshing teletext.

It brought to mind the most famous match of recent times where most were keeping a close eye on the score at another venue. And it reminds us to thank, in case he departs out of sight in the summer, Sergio Aguero for making one of the great contributions to modern life.

Manchester City Sergio Aguero celebrates scoring 'The Agueroooo moment'

The Agueroooo moment might have officially brought the curtain down on the age of innocence at Manchester City, but it still never fails to stir a shiver, no matter how many replays you see.

The perfect sporting moment, the perfect commentary from Martin Tyler, an expertly judged blend of restraint and losing your shit.

We’ll forever drink it in.

STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN

David Rocastle: A story from Niall Quinn’s autobiography nails why, 20 years after his death, the former Arsenal and England man is remembered as fondly for his kind heart and generous soul as his skill and medals. Copping the big Irishman at Highbury tube station on his first day at Arsenal, Rocastle remembered him from a trial and offered a greeting, but also a concerned word of sartorial guidance for the newcomer in London:

‘You coming to play with us then?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Excellent.’

‘Thanks.’

‘One word, mate.’

‘Yeah?’

‘The duffel.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Honestly, mate. Lose it.’

‘Serious?’

‘Deadly.’

Quinny left the “brand new duffel coat that my mother had bought to shield her only son against the London winter” at the ticket office.

HELL IN A HANDCART

Timo Werner: in Germany’s hour of ignominy against North Macedonia, the Chelsea man missed an open goal from 10 yards and is now being held up in his homeland as a symbol of failed vaccine delivery. At least our lads aren’t yet being blamed for that.