John Fogarty: GAA forget everybody should belong

David Clifford has the awareness to mention players currently numbered 27 to 36 after Kerry's league triumph

David Clifford’s acceptance speech after Kerry’s league final win over Mayo was as polished as his performance. Picture: Ray McManus/Sportsfile

In the absence of a minute’s silence for Red Óg Murphy at last Sunday’s Division 1 and 2 finals in Croke Park, Kerry captain David Clifford’s heartfelt words about the late Sligo and DCU star were even more poignant.

Clifford’s acceptance speech was as polished as his performance: Short enough to reflect what was another league title for Kerry and succinct enough to send a message to his team-mates. “This is only the start of it,” he declared to them. “So, it’s time to build on it from here.” 

He also had the awareness to mention players currently numbered 27 to 36, surplus to the 26 Jack O’Connor could select but vital to the cause, as Clifford highlighted. “One of the most important things... to the 10 fellas on the extended panel who didn’t make today’s match-day squad, who were training in Currans yesterday, lads these kind of days are yours. Ye are as much a part of it as any of us so keep the heads down and we’re so glad to have ye here.” 

Approached by photographers for images of the squad afterwards, Clifford asked them to wait until the entire training group had assembled. Members of the Kerry management team requested that a steward allow those players, who were sitting in the Hogan Stand, onto the field so they could join the group to pose for the cameras.

Kerry wouldn’t be a Gaelic Players Association (GPA) stronghold – as the likes of Tomás Ó Sé and Darran O’Sullivan have said in the past, you don’t want for anything when you’re a senior Kerry footballer. On the day they beat Mayo in Tralee last month, none of the Kerry players told their manager that they were taking a vow of silence in protest at the expenses issue faced by inter-county players in general.

That’s not to say they haven’t influenced the players’ body. In 2007, then GPA chief executive Dessie Farrell admitted he was inspired by Paul Galvin’s insistence in an interview that they “nail” an issue. Strike action followed later that year arising from stalled Government grants.

Clifford’s remarks were decidedly more subtle – GAA director general Tom Ryan, standing behind the Fossa man, applauded his remarks about the additional panel members – but they will have been noted just as other winning captains’ comments about the importance of squads over the weekend.

Less than 24 hours after Clifford’s oration, Ryan was suggesting there was a breakthrough in the stand-off with the GPA. “There’s enough common ground between us to be able to arrive at a resolution. We’ve regular interaction and meetings with the GPA and there’s one scheduled for early next week so what’s been mentioned (about contact hours) – there’s a lot of commonality there between us and there may well be grounds for resolution.” 

It is understood that the GPA’s player engagement manager Colm Begley’s contact hours policy to the GAA’s sports science committee on March 30 was received well. Rather than a one-size-fits-all approach to training, preparation would be tailored as best practice required.

What flies in the face of that supposed thawing was the Central Council meeting last Saturday week when, according to a number of delegates in attendance, GPA chief executive Tom Parsons received a chilly reception after he took the opportunity to explain their stance.

Tyrone goalkeeper and GPA national executive member Niall Morgan’s essay on the expenses situation, issued by the GPA, last Saturday wouldn’t indicate the peace pipe has yet been lit, never mind passed around.

“They (the GAA) reneged on an agreement, which just doesn’t sit well with players,” he wrote. “The imposed charter does use players as a cost saving mechanism and they’ve shown no urgency to try and sort the dispute out. I saw talk of ongoing negotiations this week. They’ve not talked to players on this since March 10. If I was a GAA championship sponsor, I’d be asking why a month has passed with no effort to resolve the dispute.” 

What’s at the heart of their differences doesn’t appear to be monumental. Clearly, relationships have soured if the GPA feel an independent broker may be required. Yet the contact hours policy put forward by the GPA seems to be coming to the same conclusion as the GAA’s only the method is different. “This is a positive method to regulate collective sessions but was not accepted as an alternative measure.” 

Parsons wrote to Central Council delegates last week. “From initial research, sessions would vary between three and five and likely result in an average of four.” 

The GAA’s reluctance to reopen discussions may be founded in their belief they are more interested in law and order. But as they sit down across the table on Thursday for the first time in over a month, it appears they have lost focus on the inclusion Clifford spoke about on the Hogan Stand rostrum, where everyone is supposed to belong.

When finishing third is first

There will come a time – perhaps it is now – when we read too much into John Kiely’s words but it hasn't been the silliest of exercises.

Speaking to Mike Moynihan in these pages last December, he intimated Limerick might not be going gung-ho for the Division 1 crown. “The league final is very close to the first round of the championship, which is something that teams are probably cognisant of.” A de facto relegation semi-final against Offaly last month substantiated that indifferent approach. And Kiely continued: “And the other item that jumps out at me is that the teams who play in the Munster final have quite a substantial break until they play again. Is it perfect? It’s not, but it is what it is and we all have to get on with it.” Three years ago, Anthony Daly of this parish drew criticism in Limerick when he suggested the then reigning All-Ireland champions were not all that interested in reaching a Munster final; that they would happily have taken third spot as they did the previous season. Simply because it was the path that suited them in 2018 and they wouldn’t be made to wait for an All-Ireland semi-final if they were Munster winners.

Reverting to the old qualifier system in 2020 and ’21, Limerick have, of course, backed up Munster titles in the last two seasons with All-Irelands, although those provincial finals came two and three weeks before All-Ireland semi-finals respectively. This year, the gap is four.

Do we assume Limerick aren’t all that bothered with completing a provincial four-in-a-row? We wouldn’t go that far but the lay-off between winning it and an All-Ireland semi-final seems to have been on Kiely’s mind for quite some time.

So how do you finish third and thus ensure a preliminary quarter-final against a Joe McDonagh Cup finalist? On the basis of the 2018 and ’19 provincial round-robin stagings, four points is enough, certainly no more than five. But Munster’s bearpit starting this weekend mightn’t allow such tapering.

Self-interest still colours reports

From a committee featuring some of the brightest minds in the GAA, the strategic report last week was on the conservative side.

A lot of that might have to do with two pandemic-riddled years but anyone anticipating amalgamated counties as Pat Gilroy has suggested or provincial championships in time being phased out, as was proposed by the Towards 2034 committee which GAA president Larry McCarthy was part of four years ago, would have been disappointed.

Medium-term strategic plans don’t provide such Easter eggs and it will be some time before Croke Park move away from their better-be-safe-than-sorry attitude, which, in all truth, had been in existence long before the emergence of Covid.

Steady hands are at the tiller and the 2023 All-Ireland senior football championship may be a move towards something better but as the report came days before one of Kerry’s finest GAA officials Gerald McKenna passed away it’s worth remembering his comments about provincial councils never being a consideration of the McNamee report in 1971.

“The report suggested three units - the club, the county and the Central Council,” McKenna told this newspaper in 2020. “There were no district boards or provincial councils. Out of that report, there were parts of it kept and parts of it scrapped because people were watching their own patch of ground in administration. They wanted to stay there, didn’t they?” Self-interests also meant that Towards 2034 report was never published. It goes without saying they still colour those that are.

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