The GAA: Law-makers or law-breakers?
Because if it wasn’t for those cursed pipes in St Tiernach’s Park, the Ulster senior club final wouldn’t have been moved to Breffni Park, and if the game hadn’t been moved to Breffni then no one would have seen the Cavan football squad’s training session.
The decision to switch venues for the Ulster final was taken late on Friday evening. It’s hard to understand why Cavan didn’t move their training to a less conspicuous venue. All the other counties that are breaking the winter ban tend to prefer remote locations with Sunday mornings being one of the favourite times.
But the Cavan session went ahead on Sunday evening. Anyone who was late leaving the game between Crossmaglen and Glenties could see what was happening.
The session took place under the illuminating glare of floodlights. It wasn’t exactly undercover training and the players certainly weren’t wearing balaclavas as The Irish Examiner was able to report that Cian Mackey was in attendance.
The presence of an established player like Mackey is crucial as it prevents Cavan from claiming that they were holding a trial game. While trial games are allowed, they’re not open to anyone in the previous season’s squad.
Although Cavan are certainly not the first county to flout the ban, they are the first to get nabbed and identified by a newspaper. While the Cavan management and players were caught red-handed, it’s the Cavan county board and Croke Park that will be red-faced by this incident.
The joint-management team of Val Andrews and Terry Hyland and their players deserve sympathy. Andrews and Hyland were only appointed a few months ago. As was stated previously in this column, the winter ban is ridiculously unfair on first season managers as it leaves them with just four weeks to get a team ready for the start of the League.
The decision by Andrews and Hyland to call a training session is entirely understandable. They don’t have any questions to answer. The same, however, cannot be said of the Cavan county board. One aspect about the winter ban which can be easily forgotten is that it is not a diktat from Croke Park. The rule was passed at Congress by county boards. County boards like Cavan.
On Sunday evening Breffni Park was open for business. Someone turned on the floodlights. Someone turned on the showers. Val Andrews and Terry Hyland were not working in isolation. They didn’t summon the players out of the blue. The county board must have known the session was going ahead.
Again, it’s important to remember that Cavan aren’t the only culprits. The fact that they stand accused merely allows us to examine the mockery the rule is making of Congress and Croke Park.
We have been repeatedly told by Croke Park that county boards passed the motion in order to protect young players from physical burn-out, whatever that is.
The evidence increasingly suggests that the main motivation of county boards is saving money. Delegates at Congress were quick to work out that if players were officially banned from training in November and December, then county boards wouldn’t be allowed to pay out mileage expenses.
It can’t be overlooked that the real fault for the introduction and passing of this worthy but ill-conceived rule lies with Croke Park. The motion and the penalties for breaching the rule were drafted and proposed at Headquarters.
Yet, now that the rule is in place it has become blatantly obvious that Croke Park can’t enforce it.
For instance, even though a newspaper story has reported that Cavan broke the training ban, how can Croke Park prove that the session took place? Now that Cavan have understandably and very intelligently rejected the story, what other evidence can Croke Park produce to justify the punishment of withholding all gate receipts from the National League? Last week Christy Cooney made an appeal to anyone who had information about counties that were breaking the ban. Cooney asked them to come forward and give their testimony to Croke Park .
That has happened. A newspaper story has stated categorically that the Cavan county squad held a collective training session in Breffni Park on Sunday December 12.
The GAA President now finds himself under the same bright floodlights as the Cavan footballers. Having talked tough, the onus is on him to act tough.
The problem for Croke Park is that it lacks the evidence gathering mechanisms which are necessary for the successful policing of this rule.
So, instead of punishing Cavan, the GAA should be thanking them for the manner in which they have underlined the flaws of this utterly impractical and unenforceable rule.
The image and reputation of the GAA is certainly not being enhanced by yet another rule which leads to law-makers becoming law-breakers.
As things stand, the Cavan footballers should return to training and Croke Park ‘s legislators should go back to the drawing board.
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