A small country thinking we’re in the big leagues

Sitting down with Aidan O’Shea in Croke Park earlier this week, it was impossible to avoid the contrast between the words escaping the Mayo footballer’s mouth and what was transpiring just across the River Liffey in Leinster House, where Paraic Duffy and Liam O’Neill were appearing before an Oireachtas committee.

The GAA director general and president were called in to explain their decision to award 14 championship games exclusively live to Sky in the wake of howls and wails that the association had sold its soul. The two officials, excellent administrators and dyed-in-the-wool GAA men, were dampening down the suggestion that the Sky deal had somehow taken the body further down the road to professionalism — or rack and ruin, depending on how you view these things. All this while O’Shea was welcoming the historic TV deal while predicting it was just another step towards a future of merged counties, franchises and players earning salaries for their toil in the jersey.

Quite the day, all told.