Crisp ads hunky dory by me, says O’Shea

CORK ladies captain, Amy O’Shea insists she is not offended by the controversial Hunky Dory advertisements that feature scantily clad models playing Gaelic football.

The media campaign was described as “gratuitous and exploitative” by camogie president Joan O’Flynn two weeks ago, but O’Shea has dismissed them as a bit of harmless fun.

“The Hunky Dorys ad is tongue in cheek,” said O’Shea ahead of Sunday’s All-Ireland senior final against Monaghan.

“It’s a funny ad that latches onto the femininity that there is in sport and I’m glad that ladies football is being seen as a feminine sport rather than anything else. It’s good for our underage players to see that just because you play sport doesn’t mean that you can’t be very feminine as well. That’s very important.

“I think you just have to take an ad like that in the manner it’s meant which is tongue in cheek and a bit of a laugh.

“If you get upset by it, then maybe you’re looking at it the wrong way.”

The femininity of ladies football is something the association’s president, Pat Quill, says he’s keen to see preserved.

With the top inter-county teams fitter and stronger now than they’ve ever been before the game is becoming more and more physical, and Quill says he’s concerned that skill might eventually be sacrificed for physicality.

“It’s a feminine, attractive and athletic sport and we want to keep it that way. We don’t want excessive physicality creeping into the game and we’ve spoken to team managements, county boards and indeed referees about that area.

“That presents its own challenges but that is why we have continuous reviews of our games.

“Ladies’ football is a very attractive sport because of the free-flowing nature of the game and long may that continue. There’s far more kicking of the ball in ladies’ football than there is in men’s and I think people enjoy that.”

In order to preserve that aspect of ladies’ football, Quill revealed yesterday the association is looking at tackling the growing prevalence of hand-passing in the sport and plan recommendations that may even lead to rule changes.

“It’s something our own management committee are considering and they will be reporting back at our management meeting next month. I would like to restrict the number of consecutive hand-passes to four and after that the ball has to be kicked forward at least 30 metres.

“A rule like that would obviously put extra responsibility on the referees and you have to think too about the effect any rule change would have at club level where you don’t have as many officials to monitor the game. It’s a balancing act that we have to get right, but we’re examining all of that. Ultimately though if teams want to play a more defensive style, it’s very hard to stop them.”