Association is failing in its duty to players and supporters
Other events though, mean our thoughts on Kilkenny and Tipp will have to wait. The past 10 days have been an awful indictment on how that sporting body governs its games.
The new Allianz League formats agreed by Central Council last Saturday week are an affront to not just hurling but common sense and fairness.
When the football leagues were revamped for the 2008 season, at least teams knew in advance that they could only be demoted by their actions on the field. The Dublin and Cork footballers found themselves playing in Division 2 that 2008 season as a consequence of not finishing in the top four of the previous year’s Division 1A group. While it might have been harsh, given how strong that Division 1A group had been, it was fair too because they had known from the outset of that 2007 season what they had to do to retain Division 1 status.
No such courtesy was extended to the Wexford hurlers this year. They were never told they would have to finish in the top six to stay in the top flight. Instead they were under the impression seventh would have been enough.
Everyone who paid into Ennis in late April for the Division 2 league final is entitled to a refund since it was falsely advertised that top-flight hurling was at stake that evening. Another piece of false advertising is for the GAA to bill Limerick’s group next year as Division 1B. It would be a Division 1B if the team who topped that group had the chance to win the league outright. They can’t. It’s Division 2 in everything but name and it’s disingenuous of the GAA to imply otherwise.
The one good thing to come out of that farcical Central Council meeting was that minds like Jarlath Burns, Dessie Farrell and Donal Óg Cusack have been co-opted onto the new playing rules committee. Because if Donegal-Dublin last Sunday showed us anything, it’s that Gaelic football needs new rules.
There was actually something fascinating about how Donegal set themselves up this year. But as much as diversity can be good for football, the danger is that the novel becomes the norm and the reality is that Donegal coldly, if shrewdly, exploited the gaps in the sport’s rules and the ignorance of its lawmakers.
Leave aside Marty Boyle feigning injury and a couple of other Donegal players gesturing to linesman Rory Hickey to send Diarmuid Connolly off, what you might not have noticed is that as Stephen Cluxton was taking his frees, he was subjected to incessant trash-talking from a Donegal player, just like all place-kickers playing Donegal this year have. In other sports there are penalties for such gamesmanship. In football there’s not, it’s another one of them “inches” Donegal can claw for.
In the 23rd minute, Colm McFadden fouled Bryan Cullen but as Cullen tried to take a quick free, McFadden hauled him to the ground. No yellow card was shown, the ball was just brought forward 13 metres, a meagre deterrent.
In the 40th minute McFadden was adjudged to have over-carried. Ten seconds after Maurice Deegan had blown his whistle, McFadden was still holding onto the ball, giving his teammates time to flood back. Again no yellow card was issued, just as there wasn’t whenever McFadden stood in front of Cluxton, preventing the netminder taking the quick kick-out.
Deegan played only three minutes of injury time when we counted at least five in normal time. The last 80 seconds of added time was also eaten up by the time it took Cluxton to take a free. Is it any wonder teams who are ahead sometimes feign injury and take their time over frees when they know referees won’t add on the appropriate time? All year Donegal have hauled men down out the field because, as they learned from playing and losing to Armagh in the last decade, there’s no real deterrent for doing so. All year they’ve flooded men back because there’s no rule to prevent them doing so. All year they’ve hand-passed the ball 200 times per game because there’s no law against it.
For all the change it has undergone in the last 20 years — much of it for the better — football has had few changes to its rule book and had very little proper debate about the game it wants to be. With the establishment of this playing rules committee it now needs to have that debate and legislate accordingly.
It might need to think outside the box whilst doing so. In BBC’s post-match analysis on Sunday, Jarlath Burns advocated the notion of a team-fouls rule for offences committed out the field, like in basketball. Burns met resistance from Mickey Harte, saying there are enough rules as is, but the reality is football doesn’t have enough.
*Contact: kieranshannon@eircom.net
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