Grassroots support puts GAA way out in front

WHAT’S the major difference between GAA sports hurling and football and the others, the likes of rugby, soccer, hockey?

Grassroots support, that’s what it is. Over the weekend we’ve had the semi-finals of the AIB AIL rugby club playoffs, Divisions One, Two and Three.

I saw one of the televised Division 1 games, the Limerick derby between Shannon and Garryowen. Magnificent rugby it was, outstanding skills by two top-class sides. Great drama at the finish too, with first Garryowen kicking an extremely difficult penalty from wide right, to take what looked like a game-winning lead, only for Shannon to power downfield, hold onto the ball through multiple phases, and force a penalty that WAS indeed the match-winner.

Huge crowd at that game, big crowd reported also from Clontarf, where the northside Dublin club beat Cork Con in the other Division 1 semi-final. In Division 2, more drama witnessed by another big crowd, a Cork/Limerick battle between Dolphin and Young Munster. In the other semi-final, it being exam-time, the minds of a much-weakened UCC were elsewhere, and they were well beaten by Terenure.

In Division 3, a more rural Cork/Limerick clash, and again, good news for Cork as Clonakilty downed Bruff in front of another decent attendance, with another Dublin northside club, Suttonians, taking the other final spot after a win over Wanderers.

Big crowds, passionate crowds, a lot of interest in all those games. But, where are those crowds for all the other AIL games? Where are those crowds for the Munster Celtic League games? Munster play Biarritz on Saturday week in Cardiff, and according to reports, up to 50,000 fans could be travelling. Where are those fans week in, week out?

Over the past weekend, I was at three Cork club hurling championship matches. Newtownshandrum and Bride Rovers on Friday night, Cloyne v Killeagh on Sunday afternoon, both of those in the senior championship, Blarney and Courcey Rovers on Sunday evening in the intermediate championship, all of those just first-round games, the loser still alive, going into a back-door second-round draw.

On each occasion, huge and passionate crowds, thousands rather than hundreds, every one of them involved in every puck of the ball. Bearing in mind the size of those clubs, one smaller than the next, that’s pretty spectacular.

On the Friday evening, the rain came in sheets, wind-driven. Now Castletownroche is a superb pitch, but work hasn’t yet started on the stand; it’s coming, soon, another major difference between the GAA and the rest, but that’s not the point here. What is the point, not a sinner left the ground, not a sinner hurried even to the shelter of their car; all were held to the final whistle by events on the pitch as the hurlers of Rathcormac and Newtown attempted to defy the conditions, and give us a championship match worthy of the name.

The hurling fans who will flock to Thurles this weekend (and they won’t be just from Limerick and Tipperary, the two participating counties), are the same fans who gather on the grassy banks of places like Castletownroche, Ballynoe, Newcestown to follow the fortunes, the misfortunes, of their local clubs. That is what I call loyalty. Where are the local rugby fans?

Truth be told, the majority of those now scrambling for tickets for Cardiff are from the grassy banks of those GAA pitches. When people harp on about the falling attendances at club rugby, blaming the advent of professionalism, they’re spouting nonsense. Apart from a few clubs, most notably in Limerick, a few special matches in one competition, the Senior Cup, rugby never had a huge local support base. The advent of the All-Ireland League was a brilliant idea, even if fifty years late, did generate a lot of early interest, but it was Munster’s progress in the Heineken Cup that did for the AIL. As Munster became a bigger and bigger story, the other provinces likewise, they gobbled up most of what media coverage there was available for rugby. Publicity was what had propelled the popularity of the AIL, now it was gone. Inevitably, gate receipts suffered.

Sad thing is, the standard of rugby across the board in the AIL is very good, the entertainment value high. Certainly some high-profile clubs have suffered, but that was mainly because in a more competitive national environment, they were found out, clubs without a real support base. What’s been happening, is the rise of the real rugby clubs, those with real support bases. Those in rural Ireland, in GAA country. Clonakilty. Bruff.

The AIL has been good for rugby, very good. The club is where it’s at, that’s where you should be, that’s where you should have been every weekend of the AIL.

Then you’d have earned that ticket to Cardiff.