John Fogarty: No home comforts for Cork and Mayo

Discommoding Kieran Kingston’s Cork hurlers, even if only slightly, in a snakepit of a Munster SHC will not sit well with some. And if Keith Ricken’s championship debut as senior football manager comes against Kerry in a Munster semi-final and it has to be moved to Killarney?

Ed Sheeran's residence in Páirc Uí Chaoimh next April likely means Cork’s senior hurlers and footballers will have to look elsewhere for a home venue. Picture: Dan Linehan

Cork’s senior hurlers may consider themselves The A Team in the county but All Of The Stars are aligned for Ed Sheeran next April and so his residence in Páirc Uí Chaoimh likely means they will have to look elsewhere for a home venue.

It may turn out to be a short skip up the Monahan Road to Páirc Uí Rinn for one of their two home Munster SHC round robin games but the inconvenience won’t go unnoticed. Money will be lost and supporters prevented from attending a game on their own doorstep.

Discommoding Kieran Kingston’s team, even if only slightly, in a snakepit of a Munster SHC will not sit well with some. And if Keith Ricken’s championship debut as senior football manager comes against Kerry in a Munster semi-final and it has to be moved to Killarney?

On the other hand, can the Cork County Board turn down the opportunity to make in excess of €1m, given the stadium debt? As Sheeran would sing, you need me, I don’t need you. When they have had to step in financially to assist in managing the spiralling costs of Páirc Uí Chaoimh, Croke Park aren’t going to make Cork walk over hot coals for prioritising ‘Happier’ ahead of Hurling.

Not when they themselves have previously been under the spotlight for promoting other activities ahead of Gaelic games. Seven years ago, the Kerry-Mayo All-Ireland final replay was moved to the Gaelic Grounds because of a college American football in Croke Park. As it turned out, the game and occasion in Limerick were memorable but the reaction to the decision was negative and infuriated Mayo supporters, as then GAA director general Páraic Duffy acknowledged in his annual report the following January.

He continued: “Before making the case here, I have to acknowledge that we took a risk that backfired on us, a consequence of what proved to be an over-optimistic assessment of the unlikelihood of a replay. A decision made in the best interests of the Association ended up causing offence to supporters, an outcome that I very much regret. It is important, nonetheless, to outline here the reasons for the decision we took.

“The overarching reason relates to the need for the GAA to continue to be in a position to fund its development. The strategy of bringing an American football game to Croke Park arose from the necessity to widen our funding base.

“Elsewhere in this report delegates will see that the demands on our funds are enormous. To take just two current projects: the Casement Park redevelopment will cost the GAA £15m sterling, and the redevelopment of Páirc Uí Chaoimh will cost Central Council in the region of €20m.” And a lot more, as it turned out. What irony that Cork are now doing something similar to get themselves out of the red.

As it turns out, Mayo find themselves embroiled in further venue difficulty with the confirmation that they are set to play all of their seven 2022 Division 1 games outside the county as MacHale Park’s pitch reconstruction has been delayed.

“We’ve looked at every possibility but there’s just no way we can host the games,” Mayo GAA secretary Dermot Butler said last week. “We’re now actively looking at alternatives and working with the authorities in Croke Park in that regard.”

Last March, Mayo assistant treasurer Michael Diskin indicated no home championship games would be lost. “We’d be hoping to be back there, hopefully, for the National League next year when it restarts in February. But worst case scenario, we’d be able to go back there in April of next year.”

However, Connacht secretary John Prenty isn’t so sure. “Mayo will have to play all their home games outside the county and it might happen that they’ll have to play a home (provincial championship) game outside the county too,” he said last week. “It depends on the schedule of matches.”

You get the sense that the Mayo camp itself won’t be too put out by the news even if they face seven away games in Division 1. MacHale Park hasn’t been a happy hunting ground for them and the reason for the pitch redevelopment in the first place was partly prompted by concerns among management and players, James Horan describing the surface as “slow”.

From 2010 to ‘21, Mayo lost 22 of their 52 league and championship games at the Castlebar venue. Their win rate was marginally over 50%. Going down to Division 2 as they did last year before coming back up this season, they lost all three of their games there, picking up five points on the road. Cork’s relationship with Páirc Uí Chaoimh is much healthier and their possible relocation will be that more acute. It’s not as simple as Sheeran’s spruce trumping Horgan’s ash but it’s a perception that will be difficult to shift if the switch comes to pass.

St Thomas’ save Galway GAA a lot of trouble

Coming days after Galway GAA chairman candidate and current hurling chairman Paul Bellew spoke about “reputational repair”, the county appeared to be stuck in the past on Saturday.

On 15 occasions, the Galway County Board has been in front of the Disputes Resolution Authority (DRA) and a 16th looked certain when they announced they were about to give a senior hurling semi-final walkover to St Thomas’ as a result of Gort’s inability to fulfil the fixture as a result of their camp Covid situation.

Local rivals St Thomas’ stepped in to propose the game go ahead this coming weekend.

“We thank St Thomas’ for their generous gesture which allows the senior championship to proceed without further delay,” read the Galway GAA statement on Sunday.

St Thomas’s offer should be praised but Kerry can tell them all about how doing the right thing sometimes doesn’t count for much. Like Galway, Croke Park also felt that they had given Tyrone more than enough time to recover from their predicament but the county, with no provincial championship to feed into, had no time constraints.

Still recovering from the financial irregularities of the past, Galway have recently had issues with their handling of transfers. While in February, Moycullen brought the county board to the DRA for endorsing a referee’s report from a minor hurling game against Oranmore-Magee the previous September, which they claimed incorrectly recorded the score. Moycullen’s claim was dismissed although the board incurred legal costs.

Galway GAA’s authority has been brought into question more than most counties. St Thomas’s intervention means it won’t be on this occasion.

PS — The DRA still have to publish their full decision to uphold former Cork senior football manager Ronan McCarthy’s 12-week suspension earlier this year.

Equality when it suits

Fridays are where most sports press releases go to die but coming on the eve of AIG’s favourite sports team New Zealand playing in the home of their second, the Dublin senior footballers, the publicity about their latest “initiative” was maximised.

“AIG sponsors both New Zealand Rugby and Dublin GAA, backing their female and male teams equally,” it read. “Today’s event was aimed at bringing leading figures in men’s and women’s sport together to discuss current topics, attitudes and developments related to diversity, inclusion and gender equality in sport in addition to timely topics around resilience, effort and performance during a pandemic. AIG has long led the way with its approach to gender balance in sport both globally and locally through its award winning #EffortIsEqual campaign.”

Since sponsoring Dublin, the company have brought their two teams together to promote their brand every November the All Blacks have come to town. You might think AIG’s equality commitment extends to providing the same funding to “their female and male teams”. The male teams accrue approximately €800,000 per annum.

But we have our concerns. Equality wasn’t on AIG’s agenda when they declined to speak to this newspaper about Dublin getting an illegitimate headstart on their competitors last March. Nor was best practice, it seems, given that the training session in Innisfails GAA club was an uninsured activity.

Contradictions can’t be swept under the carpet.

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