Talking Sport: Nation of moaners will warm to sin bin

JANUARY makes the heart of the GAA journalist sink. This is the month when nothing really happens.

Yet papers have to be filled. So the hapless hack is forced to feign great interest in O’Byrne Cup matches, FBD Connacht League clashes, Dr McKenna Cup showdowns.

He must pretend that these matches between teams of less than optimum fitness played on bad pitches in pursuit of trophies which nobody really wants actually matter.

That’s what it’s like most Januarys. But this one is different because, for once, people really are interested in what’s happening in the pointless football competitions. The GAA journalist and his readers have been saved from the usual New Year anomie by the furore over the sin bin.

So far we’ve had Tyrone and Armagh complaining that the introduction of the suspended animation box is designed to put Ulster teams at a disadvantage, we’ve had Sean Boylan complaining that it makes a mockery of football and new Offaly manager Kevin Kilmurray lamenting the fact that it has nothing to do with the way they played the game in his day. (Memo to Kevin: You played inter-county football three decades ago. A lot has changed since)

So why is the outcry so virulent? Why has the sin bin become gaelic football’s equivalent of the smoking ban?

Reason number one is that everyone in this country likes a bit of a crib. We are a Liveline Nation and the complaint is our favourite mode of expression. The worst thing about the introduction of the smoking ban, for example, was that you couldn’t go into a pub for months before without hearing that people wouldn’t stand for it, this is political correctness gone mad, the pubs will be empty, what about the seventy year old who’s been smoking for the last sixty years and comes in on a tractor. And then the Ban came in and the same complainers took their packs of twenty and boxes of matches and stood out in the rain.

The GAA reflects society and has also embraced the culture of complaint.

During every championship, refs get cursed from a height as managers wonder why players who train so hard have to put up with officials who don’t reach a robotic level of precision. The GPA’s whinge about image rights comes out of the same bag. Soccer people give out about not being handed the keys to Croke Park. And when they get into the stadium, they’ll crib about something else. It’s part of what we are.

So the sin bin was going to be criticised anyway because it was an easy target, being new. But some of the carping may be a little bit more sinister.

Because it has to be said that the innovation is a welcome one if it cuts down on the type of persistent personal fouling which in 2003 threatened to reduce gaelic football to a standstill.

Two or three more All-Ireland finals like the decider of two years ago and the game would have become the most unattractive sporting spectacle in Ireland.

Kerry (and the much maligned Mayo) did a lot to drag the game out of the mire last year but there’s no room for complacency. There are still plenty of teams out there who use the tactical foul to slow down the opposition and thus gain an unfair advantage. Foremost among them are Armagh and Tyrone, the two counties who were first out of the blocks to criticise.

Joe Kernan and Mickey Harte appear to want to murder the Sin Bin before it goes any further. And, as anyone who’s ever watched an episode of Poirot knows, you solve a murder by finding out who had the strongest motive.

Tyrone and Armagh have a lot to lose if persistent jersey-pulling, dragging down and obstruction are stamped out of the game. Both teams have many virtues but they have brought the personal foul to the level of art. Remove it from their defensive arsenal and they might struggle. (Of course both teams are well talented enough to win by focussing on their more positive attributes but they’re not taking any chances)

One of the arguments against the sin bin is that old chestnut that gaelic football is a man’s game. But there isn’t anything particularly manly about the type of pulling and dragging which increasingly blights the sport.

If anything it’s got rid of the old style shoulder charge and the 50-50 physical contest because it’s far easier to wrap your arms around a man and drag him down.

WHEN people berated Armagh and Tyrone for their approach to football they replied with the utilitarian argument that the end justified the means, that their fans wouldn’t complain as long as they won. Fair enough but the GAA can’t then be blamed if they try and make it more difficult for teams which adopt such a cynical approach. Just as there was no onus on Tyrone to let Kerry play football, the GAA aren’t obliged to let them win All-Irelands by any means necessary.

Expect there to be much more complaining during the League about the Sin Bin. But if the Association heeds the propaganda and neuters the rule, then football will be the loser. Perhaps games are diminished when seven or eight players spend time off the pitch. But it’s up to managers to get their players to conform to the rules. It will, in the long run, be worth it for anyone who really loves the game.

We will learn to love the sin bin. Believe me. This time next year you’ll be saying what a good idea it was, as you light up outside the local and the snow falls around you.