Larry Ryan: Only the league but still demanding attention

FAN FAVOURITE: Eoin Murphy has his photo taken with supporters after the Allianz Hurling League Division 1 Group B (or was it Group A, no
definitely Group B) match between Kilkenny and Laois at O’Moore Park.  Picture: Daire Brennan/Sportsfile

It is now perhaps the stiffest test of sporting knowledge you can pose in this country, the benchmark that identifies the serious anorak: Can you remember whether your county is in Division 1A or Division 1B of the Allianz Hurling League?

It’s the kind of sticky one George Hamilton might have thrown in as he lifted the pace towards the end of the specialist subject round on Know Your Sport.

Who replaced the injured Jim Treacy in Kilkenny’s 1973 final line-up? Phil Cullen. How many Kilkenny players were on the inaugural All-Stars? Five. Who was right half back in ‘78, midfield in 79, and corner-back in 87? Joe Hennessy. In which group of Division 1 of the Allianz Hurling League do Kilkenny play? Ahhh, pass.

What does it mean, this incapacity to lodge key detail about the current league structure in our minds? Yet another existential poser we must face up to around the league.

We are in the middle of a serious epidemic of league angst. Dalo, for one, is beside himself. Spends every waking moment coming up with solutions to fix the league. Wrestling with his calendar, adding a week here, dropping a match there. But they are all at it. The finest minds devising incentives to make them try harder in the league. Holidays, bonus points, shortcuts to the All-Ireland.

At the same time, people who spent many years complaining how unfair it was that a top hurling county could be relegated in the league are now perplexed by this stagnation that has taken hold where a top hurling county can’t be relegated in the league.

When it comes to the league, solutions and problems are interchangeable. Like-for-like substitutions. Back around the end of the noughties, the silver bullet solution was the restoration of league semi-finals to stop teams losing interest. Now the only way forward is the elimination of league semi-finals, to stop teams losing interest.

You’d like to think the league is just another victim of modern restlessness. At the mercy of the human condition. A symbol of our need to know what it all means.

Except we have been worrying about what it all means since the league first started, in 1925. Indeed, they started the wrestling straight away, trying three different formats in the first three seasons to counter indifference. And they have essentially continued in that vein ever since, nobody ever getting to the bottom of what we can do to fix the league.

And yet, is there any real incentive to fix the league? Can there be any other competition in the world that gets so much coverage, while participants and commentators cast daily doubt on its credibility? And then you factor in all the bonus coverage of potential solutions to sort out the league. On the publicity front, if it is broke don’t ever fix it. 

It’s lack of credibility, they say, put paid to media coverage of athletics. What the sport’s honchos would give to see pages and pages of pundits complaining that “it’s only the Diamond League”.

We do our best, in these quarters, to track the progress of Irish stars at the major events, but it was eye-opening, this week, to scour the international media for wider previews of the ongoing European Indoor Championships.

A search for “athletics”, day before the event, at one major international wires service, turned up one story, bringing word that “Kate beats William at endurance spin class”, further revealing that “the Princess of Wales beat her husband in a virtual endurance spin race in the Italian Dolomites - while wearing high-heeled boots.” 

Even Dalo would baulk at that format for jazzing up the league.

If the appetite was there, of course there is a tried and trusted formula to solve things at a stroke. Abandon the entire structure. Do away with the notion of competition altogether, stop compiling tables and counting points and just let the counties play each other whenever they want. These could be rebranded as Tests. And before long there would be plays written and DVDs released about an historic Test win on Galway soil, or wherever.

The alternative might be to just stop the search for greater meaning, and enjoy the league for what it brings. And embrace the very reasons the league still gets blanket coverage everywhere you look.

Because in one sense it’s a perfect competition. A reason to get out of the house with a guarantee you will never be brought to the point of despair. Because you don’t yet have to face up to what it all means.

The league is a fact-finding mission, an outing for the diehard to see how they are going, to live in the moment and forget what’s coming down the line. 

It's a chance to see first steps taken, to enjoy moments of skill for their own sake, to make allowances for mistakes and admire ourselves for our generosity.

You can only win, really, in the league, there is nothing much to lose. And it doesn’t really matter whether you’re in 1A or 1B.

Two angels for Gilesy

There was a beautiful interview with John Giles on Off The Ball this week. Presenter Nathan Murphy is a great foil for Gilesy, realising there are times when you just go wherever this is taking you. And when you’re dealing with Gilesy, that is nearly every time.

This time, for some reason, they drifted onto Gilesy’s age, 82 now, and how that sits with him.

As ever, our greatest football man fielded this one on its merits.

“I can’t believe I’m 82. Sometimes I look at the old films playing for Leeds, it’s like yesterday. When you’re playing football at that age, you don’t think of the future. It’s that type of life. It’s out of this world, in a good way. You go into it at 15 and come out of it at 35 and you’re still only 15. You play jokes on each other, it’s childish. It’s the mentality you sort of have to have, playing football. It has to be everything.”

We look to Giles for wisdom on football, on morality, on greatness, and on everything really, but it was touching to be allowed a moment’s vulnerability too. A reflection that giving everything to a sport inevitably shortchanges you in other areas.

“I’m 82 going on 15 still and I’m not bragging about that. I wish I had grown up, I certainly wouldn’t have made some of the mistakes I made in the real world.” 

Nathan didn’t really want to pry but Giles mentioned some mistakes with money he knows he wouldn’t have made with a bit more education. If football hadn’t been everything.

It was just a moment. It's reassuring too that John Giles knows he got from the game as much as he gave. 

“I’ve got an angel on both shoulders. Always had since the time I was a kid. To be a professional footballer, to do what I wanted, And healthwise, touch wood.

“I wouldn’t have any complaints.”

Only the Carabao?

Are they having a bit of an existential crisis over at the PGA Tour too, with their nipping and tucking to the format, in a bid to create a "compelling product"? Though they have other priorities too, of course, such as ringfencing a pile of dough for the leading lights.

A better example for the hurling league to follow might be the Carabao Cup, which long ago took over as the more enjoyable cup competition in England. Simply because there is rarely any need to dwell on what it means.

You can't really get "dumped out" of the Carabao Cup, it can never bring you to despair. So it tends to throw up some great matches, if you choose to live in the moment on an idle midweek night.

Of course that all changed this week when the Carabao Cup suddenly ranked up there among the great competitions in the world. And a surefire indicator of future success. 

Even the celebration police, usually so active when anybody in football is seen to be enjoying themselves, were given the week off. 

At Carabao HQ, glasses must have been raised at an investment finally come good.