Sacred cows or just full of bull?

A CASUAL conversation over the holidays threw up a good question: Why are some teams and sports organisations immune to criticism, and why are others lightning rods for complaint? Sacred cows and satanic cows, if you like.

Clearly you don’t have to look too far these days to find examples from both camps. A lengthy email received recently by this column on the standoff in Cork GAA circles attacked this self-same column by saying it was easy to have a dig at the county board.

The same correspondent then added that the board deserved a few regular digs. Which sounds like having one’s cake and eating it.

The GAA is a good starting point, in that it offers the perfect example of nuance, in which sacred and satanic cows co-exist within the same sport.

For instance, ‘the GAA’ — a mysterious organisation which exists somewhere in the sky over Croke Park, to judge by the offhand references to it — is responsible for offences against common sense such as experimental rules which drive managers crazy early in the year, wholly expected last-minute draws which bring in vast sums from replay attendances, loose descriptions of hundreds of well-remunerated staff engaged in activities unknown in Jones Road, and sundry other annual developments of that type. Satanic, no question.

Yet ‘the GAA’ also exists as the organisation which built Croke Park and gave shelter to the country’s international soccer and rugby teams. References to this particular incarnation of the GAA have a far more inclusive cast to them, with the debates often involving much throat-clearing and pointing to one’s chest.

In this context, a sacred cow with halo around the ears.

The FAI, by contrast, gets a lot of negative coverage, both in terms of boardroom administration and international activity. The slow take-up of premium tickets in the new Lansdowne Road is the latest stick being used to beat the FAI, though criticism of the international players may abate if Giovanni Trapattoni can steer them to the next World Cup.

Considering the disappointment expressed about Ireland’s performances against Cyprus, to take one example, it’s striking that this marked the final stage in the transformation from sacred cow to satanic.

When Jack Charlton’s side were bothering low-flying pigeons in football stadia all over the world 20 years ago with their basic game plan, nobody criticised them (except, of course, Eamon Dunphy, who has become a bit of a sacred cow himself).

The team that Jack built was the engine that drove the country’s good humour, so who was going to criticise them? However, the public fell slowly out of love with the Irish soccer team in the intervening years: They weren’t getting to major tournaments, Jack had gone, and maybe people just didn’t like the new players as much as they liked Paul McGrath and Packie Bonner.

The Jack Charlton years form an interesting counterpoint to the Eddie O’Sullivan years with Ireland. O’Sullivan’s early successes made him a sacred cow, but the disappointment of the Rugby World Cup in 2007 turned him satanic pretty quickly and he became the focus of almost all criticism of Ireland’s performances.

The focus on O’Sullivan as scapegoat meant the international players escaped a lot of that criticism, but the intriguing sideline was the blame attached to the IRFU for extending his contract before the World Cup.

The rugby administration has a relatively low-key profile most of the time, but that contract offer turned them briefly into satanic cows, before they bounced back with their smooth dispersal of Lansdowne Road premium tickets.

Staying with rugby, Munster are also clearly a sacred cow, but with two Heineken Cups acquired in recent years, it’s a well-earned status.

As a good example of a satanic cow, compare their fellow province, Leinster. The men in blue are attacked for losing big games, for not having authentic followers, for not being representative of their catchment area, for having too many imports, for having picked the wrong imports, for being urban poseurs rather than genuine rural people.

The odd thing is that if Munster hadn’t picked up those two Heineken Cups, they could have been indicted on a few of those charges themselves.

Which all goes to show that rather than the odour of sanctity, the smell of victory is what imparts an air of the sacred.

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