Larry Ryan: Tradition is dead but the hand of history hurls off its good side
LAUNCH: Noel McGrath of Tipperary and Ryan Taylor of Clare at the launch of the Munster GAA Championship at Pairc Ui Chaoimh in Cork. Photo by Eóin Noonan/Sportsfile
Tradition is a thing of the past, as per Liam Cahill. A nice line. A succinct warning to move with the times.
Tradition, in the GAA sphere, is at least 75% complaint. People not easily satisfied. Structures and calendars. Games on in the wrong month, or on the wrong day, or at the wrong time for the milking. And probably not on in the right place. Too many games on. Not enough games on. The game not on the telly. Too many games on the telly before the hurling. Too many games for young lads, but why can’t the young lad play in this game too? Why is there no round robin? What is the need for a round robin? Would he ever let it flow? How is that not a free? The team named too late. The team named too early.
Tradition, on the eve of hurling championship, is also painting a single mood on a county. Taking pulses. Tipp not traveling. Waterford sceptical. Kilkenny adjusting. Antrim optimistic. Clare channeling Galatasaray. Limerick in a state of grace.
Limerick are the new traditionalists, as per Liam Cahill. The new tradition is winning. Everything else an old map with defunct borders. Limits obsolete. Established terms of engagement redrawn.
Traditionally, on the eve of championship, we would ponder who wants it most? Who would be sponsored by The Savage Hunger. It was never something we asked of, say, Tour de France cyclists or Premier League footballers. Who would be driven quickest up this mountain by the performance-enhancing magic of perceived sleights and umbrage? And we don’t ask it about Limerick any more because they are presumed to operate to the peak of their athletic capacity, without any need for being written off by youse boys coming up here today.
We don’t assume the same of Davy’s teams. The man has cut a tradition of his own. Swimming with smaller fish in waters choppy from his own splashing. We assume he will come with tricks and gameplans and curveballs and we assume he will remain a combustible energy source. A human generator. A guarantee of fire and friction. And maybe one day he will throw the sweetest curveball of all and opt for serenity. Might Waterford’s cavalry of talent and pace relax into a groove?
Tradition is a thing of the past for Micheál Donoghue too. And for sportswriters obliged to factor Parnell Park, fortress, and cauldron into the word count for any projection of Dublin’s championship prospects. It’s a bold invitation to his players. To broaden their horizons, widen their field of vision and their vision of a field. Make it their stage rather than an inhibitor of the other crowd. It’s his own statement that limits are obsolete, that established terms of engagement have been redrawn. Only thing is, won’t it be hard now to go back to Donnycarney? Wouldn’t it represent a scaling back of everything including ambition?
When taking the pulses, only Galway traditionally defy easy caricature. That is their caricature. The known unknowables. Forever between stools. Full of Finnertian fortitude, often undone by flimsy flakiness. If Henry could perform one successful transplant operation during his term, it might be that we know what to make of them.
In football, by the way, haven’t they pulled an ingenious fast one with the traditionalists? An inspired bait and switch. Let them eat provincial championships. Allow them hold onto the ancient orders that moor them, while rendering much of it meaningless. If they haven’t noticed, don’t alert them. Let them enjoy these freewheeling exchanges. These lads betting the house on a goal instead of ‘the sensible option’. We’ll hear soon enough that it’s only the provinces.
There are too many matches on this weekend though, aren’t there, than is traditional, before a back door is ajar? Less is more, and all that. Or could more be more? With a match for nearly everyone there should be fewer neutrals nosing into others’ business. Too much football, in particular, is watched by neutrals. Neutrals might even top the long list of football’s problems. Folk demanding entertainment who’ve come to the wrong place. It’s not a sport built for neutrals. It’s a game for folk with everything invested.
On the eve of hurling championship, one tradition is dead. Nobody is flying in training. Omerta dictates. Presumably, the Dubs’ achievement in spiriting Cluxton back into the fold for weeks without anyone noticing has been circulated to all panels as evidence that the bar has been raised. Not a whisper, lads.
Still, traditional anticipation survived antiseptic covid isolation, and it survives dislocation to April. The sun peeped out briefly in sympathy with those displaced. There is perhaps nothing like the hurling championship for nervous tension. Just as the pulse of a county can be taken, sometimes the touch of an entire county mysteriously evaporates in the warmup. There’s a giddy ‘what about it’ when the first one drifts wide, but when the second and third follow, there’s a slow sink into foreboding that maybe only a goal can arrest. Perhaps they have forgotten that feeling in Limerick.
We are changing with the times and playing through the lines, but still we lean on some traditions. On Dalo’s podcast, Mark Landers piped up, unprompted, that there’s nothing like playing Tipp, first day out, to stir the passions, to pump the blood.
Tradition is a thing of the past, but the past is what moors us to purpose. The hand of history strikes off its good side. Heroes and legends and feats give everything we have today a scaffold of meaning. Liam Cahill won’t forget that either. And in Ennis, there might still be a place for The Savage Hunger.
It’s hard to keep track, these days, whether we are lamenting the demise of snooker from the glory days, or celebrating the survival of snooker beyond the glory days.
Whether we are wistful for our abandoned heritage of snooker halls and 6x3 tables for Christmas, or whether we are just thankful the odd pool table survives and Eurosport still gives the game its due.
So you could look at it two ways, the antics of the two Just Stop Oil protestors, who desecrated the hallowed Crucible baize in a cloud of orange powder this week.
It was notable our dastardly duo made their move just minutes into the opening frame of Robert Milkins and Joe Perry, with the score 11-4.
Are we to interpret this haste as another symptom of the modern short attention span that has jeopardised snooker’s status? That the pair couldn’t even face into a chunk of the opening session and get their money’s worth, before sending everyone into baulk?
Or were these members of orange disorder just knowledgable snooker fans like everyone else in the sacred hall, who wouldn’t have the heart to interrupt a break in full flow, who wouldn’t countenance compromising the integrity of a protracted safety exchange?
Maybe they just knew full well if they had given it half a chance, if they allowed themselves get sucked into the great game of millimetres, they’d still be there long into the night like everyone else, glued to their seats rather than the table. Burning the night oil.
John Giles: When you’re looking for wisdom encased in a nutshell, there remains no better supplier. His verdict on Haaland: “He’s a giant of a lad who has the balance of a little fella.”
Tipp: Ah lads, alphabetical teams, summoning dark memories of the times when all we had to watch on a Saturday evening was rugby highlights on Grandstand, with Leicester Tigers togged out with letters on their backs. What’s next for the Premier, demanding the middle initial?
