The Fogarty Forum: Ten truths to share after a below-par league season
1. If you think Gaelic football is dead you’re a sucker. If you rolled your eyes at those who grieved the game’s demise then you’re just as much a mark. We were all had. Jarlath Burns in making his declaration was just as deliberately provocative as Joe Brolly when he made his “indentured slaves” remark. Burns wanted a reaction. He wanted to start a debate. He succeeded on both counts. Cut away the grandstanding and the reality is Gaelic football is in difficulty. Replay finals or not, hurling championship attendances, considering the number of teams involved, should really never exceed those of football. Yet that is exactly what’s happened last season. We need not wonder why.
2. For the third time since Division 1 semi-finals were introduced in 2012, a team with just three wins from seven games will be in the shake-up for a league title. Mayo didn’t win a title in either 2012 or 2013 and the chances are Donegal aren’t likely to be so gung-ho for a title because of bigger challenges ahead. But their presence in the knockout stages after a mediocre campaign says more about the competition structure than them.
3. Because Dublin are involved, we won’t this weekend see a repeat of the paltry 11,342 crowd that attended the 2012 Division 1 semi-finals. Having said that, the chances are those who do turn up won’t be all that excited by the prospect of seeing a Monaghan team coming off the back of five days in Portugal going up against Dublin again. Beating Cork would mean Donegal would have just three weeks free to prepare for the visit of Tyrone. This weekend’s fare is more a turn-off than a turn-on.
4. Kerry’s mask has well and truly slipped. Their opponents will say it has long since been removed from their face. Mayo will point to how they purposely slowed down the game with shemozzles and refusing to let go of their opponents when they were ahead in last year’s All-Ireland semi-final replay in Limerick. They managed to get a result on Sunday by a combination of some brilliant football combined with cynical play.
5. Unless Jason Ryan does something spectacular this summer, he won’t be Kildare manager this time next year. Good teams like Armagh have fallen similarly but Kildare look decidedly unsteady. Ryan wasn’t exactly left a healthy legacy but they should have had enough in store to avoid a drop to Division 3.
6. Best defence across in the top two divisions this spring? Dublin. Jim Gavin’s side conceded just 2-78 in seven outings, four of which came away from Croker. For all the bluster about Ulster teams, nobody’s held their lines better than the so-called aristocrats. “We want to play an expansive game,” says Gavin. Want to is one thing; doing so is another.
7. Notice how many palmed goals are being scored right now? Cork have scored plenty as their hard runners have rampaged to the edge of the square before hand-passing across to a support player. Dublin’s U21s were at it as well in the first half of last Thursday’s Leinster final. Goals are goals but if there is a score that personifies how claustrophobic things have become in defences it’s a three-pointer by way of a hand.
8. You might have read elsewhere this past weekend the reason for the paucity of quality, attacking football in this year’s top flight is Donegal’s fault. Apparently, their win over Dublin has provided teams with an updated blanket defence blueprint (nothing to do with teams having acquainted themselves with the black card). That oversight may have something to do with the fact the author championed the black card as the game’s great solution. Goals are significantly down this season on last — Division 1 (-29), Division 2 (-3), Division 3 (-9) and Division 4 (-35). Not because everybody is blanketing but because they’re no longer as frigid in stopping the attacker.
9. What does it say about Mayo supporters when over 10,000 of them turn up to see their side just three weeks after almost 14,000 saw Dublin handed them a spanking? Loyal to the last? Gluttons for punishment? There is a lot of goodwill in the county for the new management of Pat Holmes and Noel Connelly. They would be best advised not to abuse it.
10. Cork appear to have turned a corner but, no matter what happens Sunday and possibly a fortnight later, they have blossomed in a competition Kerry couldn’t give two hoots about. Yes, Kerry may have been a point away from the semi-finals but were just as close to Division 2 football. Cork have put much more into this campaign than Kerry and you get the feeling Fitzmaurice’s side will be better served in Portugal than Cuthbert’s men in Croke Park this month.
You won’t hear Cork footballers complaining this week about a return to Croke Park on Sunday, their first game there since last August’s All-Ireland quarter-final defeat to Mayo.
“Any day you play in Croke Park is a good day.” You know the stock spiel.
Yet in the interest of promoting the game in Cork — not to mention the fact Brian Cuthbert’s side finished top of the heap — they did enough to earn home advantage. If Dublin weren’t involved, there’s a good chance their clash with Donegal might have been fixed for Páirc Uí Rinn.
It wasn’t just consideration for Cork and Donegal fans that their game was fixed as the curtain-raiser: any package involving Dublin is seen not just by TV stations but the GAA as the more attractive package. If Cork aren’t insulted, they should be.
GAA director general Páraic Duffy earlier this year took exception to the idea of the organisation being described as “corporate GAA” in the wake of last year’s Sky Sports, Garth Brooks and American college football controversies. He was correct for the most part but the GAA’s commitment to their principles may soon face its greatest test if an approach is made by UFC to stage an event at Croke Park.
The vulgarity of a minority of members of the crowd at last week’s UFC fan event in Dublin was an embarrassment. The profanities, broadcast worldwide on YouTube, were unbecoming but what was most troubling was the adolescent, idiotic pap from adult men uttered and cheered in the presence of children. As if it was appropriate. As if it was right. We don’t write this from a pulpit. Gaelic games is not above moments of boorishness but it stands for so much more than a raucous afternoon or evening out. If that message isn’t conveyed by the GAA to UFC, if and when they come knocking, then it is time to be worried.
