GAA stars could be turned into Rugby Sevens players and Olympians
Watching the All-Ireland semi-final between Dublin and Tyrone, on a rare Sunday off, got me thinking: there is no doubt, tomorrow we will be looking at some of the finest athletes in Ireland playing in Croke Park.
As I watched Dublin and Tyrone, I started thinking when the next Olympics comes around, when the next Rugby World Cup comes around when the next Fifa World Cup comes around, and Ireland are barely surviving, where are all our elite athletes?
The answer is that some of our best athletes are playing GAA, which is brilliant. But the Olympics is one of the greatest sporting occasions in the world and when you watch the athleticism of the Dublin footballers you could ask the question ‘what could these boys be as Olympians?’ And it came to me, listening to other conversations and talking to various people — they’re Rugby Sevens players.
They’re trained like rugby players: the speed they have, the physicality, the strength and fitness, the diet — they have everything that professional athletes have. Only they’re amateurs.
The IRFU maintains Ireland doesn’t have a big enough pool of rugby players to field a Sevens team, and they’re probably right, but we have, without doubt, when you watch Sunday’s All Ireland football final, men who could be Olympians. And Rugby Sevens players is what they could be.
Some GAA players go off to the AFL to fulfil their dreams of becoming professional athletes. I’ve no problem with them doing that, fair play to them, but they’re lost to Ireland. You’ve the Ó hAilpíns, Tommy Walsh, Brendan Murphy, Tadhg Kennelly, Zac Tuohy, Pierse Hanley, to name but a few. They all went off to be AFL players but, instead of letting them off to be AFL player, why doesn’t Ireland keep them and turn them into Rugby 7s players?
How many of the Dublin footballers could fit the bill? To name but a few, you have Con O’Callaghan, Brian Fenton, John Small, and Jack McCarthy. That’s just sticking with Dublin, but if you look outside the box you have the likes of Niall Sludden in Tyrone, Daniel Flynn in Kildare, any many more athletes dotted around the country, and people with better GAA minds than mine will be able to pick them out.
These are supreme athletes that could be turned into Rugby Sevens players and Olympians. Sevens isn’t 15s, there’s no specific positions, you don’t need a prop, you don’t need a hooker, you don’t have a specific scrum-half or a designated full-back. Sevens is played at the pace these guys are playing GAA.
Watch the Dublin footballers, the way they can almost play basketball on a football pitch, the way they can utilise the space. They’re phenomenal athletes.
Louise Galvin and Emer Considine have gone from Ladies’ Football back to rugby. It can be done, there’s no doubt, and the crossover isn’t as difficult as one might think. Okay, they’ll have to learn the bounce of an oval ball as opposed to a round ball, and they’ll have to be taught to tackle, but that’s it.
I’m not saying it could happen by the 2020 Olympics, but perhaps by the 2024 Olympics. If you went after the likes of Kerry minor star David Clifford and other young athletes — how many 18-year-olds are there in Ireland like him?
GAA purists are likely to go crazy at the suggestion of these lads being sent off to become Olympians, but when Ireland turn up at the next Games, we’ll all become experts on rowing and on boxing, but we’ll have very few athletes to be shouting about. Wouldn’t it be great to be sending a live medal chance? That’s what these lads are - some of the best athletes Ireland has. They are incredible and, with the help of the IRFU, the OCI, and the GAA it could happen.
I suppose when you put three bodies that size trying to work together it could be a disaster, but the athletes are there and if it is approached in the right way it could be successful.
The Dubs are fantastic to watch, as are many more footballers and hurlers around the country. Give them the chance to be professional athletes. Put them on contracts. Team GB did it with cycling, in the Velodrome. They went after athletes and turned them into cyclists — and gold-medal winning Olympians, at that.
We have the athletes here with the physique to be Sevens players, so why aren’t we going after them?
All good players and teams are intelligent, they can see things happen in front of them, and that’s what these lads have in abundance.
The step from one to the other isn’t as big as people might think. They already have the physique, the physicality, the athleticism, and the lines they run, the space they create, the awareness of where the other players are — it’s all there.
I know, when I’m watching these lads in action on Sunday afternoon, I’ll be thinking these athletes are Olympians in waiting.
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