Rise and fall of Mayo men proves sport and politics should never mix

A COUPLE of weeks ago we noticed that there was a very unfortunate metaphor being trotted around by political pundits as Fine Gael was convulsed by a leadership challenge.

On more than one occasion we heard various FG spokespersons on radio being invited to liken their leader, Enda Kenny, to Justin McCarthy, embattled Limerick hurling manager.

The parallels were clear, according to the political pundits: here you had a figurehead who couldn’t get his best players out on the field of play, and surely in that scenario there was no option open to the man at the top other than to do the honourable thing, etc., etc.