Gaelic football now a riot of rancour
Alas, the survivors got home to find the reality TV show, Eden, that theyâd been participating in hadnât been screened for seven months due to lack of interest.
It was a little like the indignity referee Sean Hurson visited on the footballers of Kerry and Dublin last Saturday night in Tralee.
As scuffles broke out all over the field, Sean typically meted out some sort of sanction then quickly got on with the game, while the lads pushed on with the rows.
Hursonâs lack of interest in the antics didnât quite turn Austin Stack Park into a Garden of Eden. The reality remained grim enough. But, just like in Scotland, at least it meant some of the fighting, petty squabbling, flagrant breaking of silly rules and displays of savage hunger took place off screen.
It remains to be seen if the LEAF (Let Em At it, the Feck) method is the one to take Gaelic football forward. But it seemed to have the desired effect in the Eir Sport commentary box, at any rate. Dave McIntyre may have been following the action exclusively through the TV monitor because late in the first half he declared that this had âcertainly not been a dirty gameâ.
And by the standards of the age, maybe he was right. None of the commentary since has been too perturbed by what we saw, or didnât see, last Saturday night.
Though the uninitiated visitor to Tralee may have worried the day weâve long feared had finally arrived and complete disintegration of civil society and breakdown of law and order had begun in earnest.
It is in a funny place, as they say, modern Gaelic football, slightly out of step with its sporting competitors.
Hurling is going through its âfierce respect, the world of respectâ phase, where all of the leading lights seem to be in the same class in college or at least act accordingly.
Extravagant displays of truculent masculinity are now more or less the preserve of the frustrated second-half substitute, who may still perform a scaled-down version of the traditional rutting stags routine with his awaiting marker.
In soccer, we more or less accepted they are all in it together the day Tim Sherwood and Jamie and Louise Redknapp launched Icon magazine in 2003, to cater for âthe exclusive tastesâ of Premier League footballers and their wives and which memorably featured a helicopter buying guide by Les Ferdinand.
The gentlemanâs club vibe was compounded by the insidious rise of the âyou canât raise your handsâ mantra, now widely accepted to be the gameâs biggest mistake.
Of course, the rugby lads have always been in it together, as a birthright. They used to punch each other in the face anyway, for the hell of it, but have now largely decided that the normal course of play affords sufficient opportunity to knock one another out.
Gaelic football, meanwhile, is a festival of malevolence. A riot of rancour. In the ceaseless quest for the marginal gains, the essential starting point for a player seems to be a deep loathing of your opposite number, his family and everything he stands for, and if that requires a little pre-match research on Facebook, so be it.
Once, a game might have contained a few âflashpointsâ, as the old euphemism goes, but now most fixtures between the big guns are dimly lit by the radioactive glow of mutual enmity.
One of two observers likened some of the action in Tralee to a UFC fight, but it more closely resembled the build-up to a UFC fight, a charmless torrent of goading and shoving and shaping.
Even if it is all an act, a pantomime, forgotten at the final whistle, the most worrying fallout from this new normal is the effect on the value of The Melee.
Once a staple attraction of any Gaelic football match, the quantitative easing of The Melee has been such that even the referee isnât bothering to watch them any more.
But might there eventually be more profound difficulties for the players themselves?
We heard much this week about GAA players giving up work to concentrate on their sport. How long before work starts giving up Gaelic footballers?
If making a gowl of yourself regularly on television is now a prerequisite for a top top player, in this image-conscious age how long before recruitment consultants list playing Gaelic football up there with a colourful Facebook profile as a career no-no?
If the game proceeds on this road, will an âuncompromisingâ corner-back find himself sitting in HR watching screenshots of himself in mid-gouge?
Will Gaelic players eventually become familiar with that old warning from the movie Clash of the Ash, roared at Liam Heffernan after he skelped an opponent across the poll during a minor match and ran off the field: âTheyâll be no job in the bank for you!â
Maybe that is the point at which the GPA will step in and calm lads down, when commercial opportunities are being hit. When the marginal losses are cancelling out the marginal gains.
In the meantime, we can have some sympathy. Clearly the rules of the game have failed Gaelic football to an extent the law of the jungle applies. That the spirit of the game has long been forgotten and now itâs all about survival. And these survivors canât afford to take the high ground, whether the world is watching or not.
Crokes play the beautiful game
For all the malevolence baked into the game, Gaelic football also provided the weekâs loveliest images.
It was a beautiful gesture by Dr Crokes and captain Johnny Buckley to bring little Amy Connors up to the Hogan Stand to help lift the Andy Merrigan Cup on St Patrickâs Day.
Amyâs father Brendan this week shared photographs of his daughter celebrating with her heroes and thanked the club for inspiring her in the battle with cancer.
Elsewhere, a speech by the coach of the University of Connecticut womenâs basketball team went viral. It condemned the âme cultureâ of todayâs youngsters.
âRecruiting kids that are really upbeat and loving life and love the game, and have this tremendous appreciation for when their teammates do something well, thatâs hard. Itâs really hard,â Geno Auriemma said.
âThey are always thinking about themselves. âMe, me, me, me, me, me. I didnât score, so why should I be happy?â Thatâs the world that we live in today, unfortunately.â
Auriemmaâs words might have been a typical rant about âthe youth of todayâ, except he blamed the individualistic attitudes of modern superstars for showing kids to think only about what they can take from sport.
It was a reminder of sportâs responsibilities to influence and inspire and give back.
Responsibilities Dr Crokes shouldered with grace.
Heroes & villains
The Tralee umpires: The most impressive display of The Savage Hunger during Kerry-Dublin came from one set of umpires, who battled for every 50/50. At one stage, the green flag umpire came haring round to double-check the white flag manâs work and the pair collided as a Kerry effort sailed wide.
Jason Cummings: Hiberniansâ 21-year-old striker is living the life and knows it. On moving out of home: âMy mum still does everything for me - cooking, cleaning, everything. I always go back to my mumâs for my tea. Iâve got no food in my house ever. It definitely does make you grow up.â
Troy Vincent: Tackling the twerk â the NFLâs VP is promising an âeducational training videoâ on âappropriateâ touchdown celebrations.
England fans: The state of their songbook should bring compulsory relegation from the Eurovision to go with Brexit.
