Sorry Buddy, you’ve let the side down badly
We would have liked to but, hey, we guess your time was too precious for us humble folk.
It’s okay to call you Lance, isn’t it? We know you prefer to be called “Buddy” but forgive us if we don’t feel we were all that pally.
Four days is all you spent in this small country of ours. All too brief but then that was your decision. To arrive late and leave early.
We thought we were worth more than that, Lance. So did your Indigenous All Star team-mates. You said as much back in August. Actually, you’d swear by the way you talked about the International Rules that it was the next best thing to a Grand Final.
Shall we remind you of it, Lance? Okay: “We’re very confident that all our best players will be available to play for Australia, and why wouldn’t they? It’s going to be an unbelievable experience.
“It’s something we’ll never forget. The AFL’s really backed us in terms of this tour so we’re looking forward to getting over to Ireland.”
Your new Sydney Swans team-mate Adam Goodes stood beside you as you uttered those words. Now there is a player, Lance. A leader too. A man who came here three years ago and impressed all sundry in captaining Australia to a series win.
But for injury, he would have been back this year but what was your excuse for leaving your beloved team in the lurch before the second test, Lance? A wedding of a buddy? Lame.
As respected AFL writer Caroline Wilson wrote about you in Melbourne’s The Age on Saturday, your absence has upset quite a few people.
“Having assured (AFL chief) Andrew Demetriou and his team sitting around the board table in August that he would not let down the International Rules team, Franklin has withdrawn from half the two-Test series due to a wedding he must have known about for months. He also failed to travel with the team or attend its first training session in Ireland. Given that Franklin and Adam Goodes were the linchpins of the AFL initiative that was only cautiously accepted by the GAA, Franklin’s decision to miss the second game and therefore relinquish the captaincy is a slap in the face to what was already a risky concept. Coach Michael O’Loughlin must be so disappointed.”
O’Loughlin was full of praise for you after Saturday’s first test. “He’s enhanced his reputation among staff and players, one of the shining lights of tonight.”
Sorry, Lance, but that sounded and read like your coach and team-mates’ estimation of you following your late appearance into camp wasn’t all that high to begin with.
The sad thing is on Saturday we saw glimpses of what the fuss is all about and these reports of a €7m contract over nine years. Boy, is that a sweet left boot you’ve got.
But then we also witnessed your ignorance of the hybrid game too, Lance. Your coach noticed it too. “I think he got confused about some of the rules,” said O’Loughlin, “but it’s a new game to us.”
It’s a new game to over half of the Ireland squad too but then they did their homework, Lance. You clearly didn’t. What is that old axiom? Ah yes: fail to prepare and prepare to fail.
Tragically, you seemed to be still in denial about your insincerity after the game, Lance. “I’ve tried to get this up and running for a long time and to see the boys out there today was exceptional and to represent indigenous people and Australia means the world not only to me but all the boys in there tonight.
“So hopefully this concept can keep running and we can get the victory next week and from there we can keep it going.”
We don’t entirely blame you, Lance. Your behaviour is in keeping with an organisation whose blithe attitude to the International Rules has chopped the legs from under it.
But when the time comes to pull the curtain on the game — and it will come — and you dare attempt to point the finger of blame remember, Lance, there are three aimed straight back at you.
* Email: john.fogarty@examiner.ie
Back in January, GAA president Liam O’Neill said dual players must get every chance to play both games at the highest level.
It came after the 2013 master calendar set Wexford’s senior footballers and hurlers to play within 24 hours of each other in June’s Leinster championships. That dilemma made a hero of Lee Chin who played both games but he should not have been put in such a position. Members of Cork County Board want to encourage more senior footballers to make themselves available for the county’s hurlers. It requires understanding but can be done.
Already, Cork are showing a lot of kindness to their dual players. Over the next three weeks, Aidan Walsh will play not two but three different codes — possibly four games in the space of 15 days. By rearranging fixtures, the county’s fixtures committee have responded positively in accommodating him, as well as Éire Óg’s Ciarán Sheehan. The stories of dual players Walsh and Sheehan as well as Noel McGrath and Leighton Glynn at club level captivate us. These are exceptional athletes who deserve exceptional treatment.
Player welfare is a thorny subject in Tyrone with Seán Cavanagh and Damien Cassidy firing shots at the county board.
Cavanagh argued strongly that the board and Eglish showed little consideration for his attempt to honour the memory of Cormac McAnallen in the International Rules series by not rearranging a league game.
Cassidy’s case was just as compelling in claiming Tyrone did their senior champions Clonoe little favour in staging their county final a week before their Ulster opener against Ballinderry, which they not surprisingly lost.
As the county have shown with their fine Garvaghey complex, they are capable of great things but they can also be insensitive.
