Pros in an amateur game

Here’s a pet theory for which there is no objective evidence; the Irish sporting world was changed irrevocably by the discussion that took place in the aftermath of the infamous events in Saipan that saw Roy Keane sent home from the World Cup.

Wherever one stood on the Keane question, there is a reasonable case to be made that something of Keane’s view on what constitutes sporting excellence seeped into Ireland’s public consciousness.

Keane was one of the finest players ever to ply his trade in his chosen code and I would argue that his often virulently expressed demands for excellence encouraged many individuals and sporting organisations to reassess their standards and values.

Keane helped change the self-image of the sporting Irishman as a jocular and plucky underdog condemned for eternity to a cycle of heroic underachievement followed by equally heroic over-celebration.

It doesn’t take too great a leap of the imagination to see, for example, the Keane effect on the success of the Irish rugby fraternity and in the unbending refusal of the likes of Paul O’Connell, Ronan O’Gara and Brian O’Driscoll to accept second place.

Likewise, at an individual level, the major victories of Pádraig Harrington — which were founded on a ruthless obsession with self-improvement — seemed to bear the mark of Keane.

There is another side to Keane’s legacy, however.

While his view that sporting integrity was exclusively defined by achievement and its bloody-minded pursuit is a good fit for the arena of professional sports, Keane’s philosophy becomes problematic when adopted unquestioningly by those who still, despite all the odds, operate in an amateur arena.

That never stopped GAA players up and down the country choosing Keane as their role model in official match programmes or unheralded corner backs muttering joylessly about failing to prepare and preparing to fail.

Committing body, mind and soul to a collective cause is one of the great joys of participation in competitive sport, but the Keane view is not entirely suited to the amateur ethos of the GAA.

The evidence is there if we are willing to look.

Over four years ago, the taskforce on player burn-out under Dr Pat O Neill’s chairmanship focused almost exclusively on our younger players, but more recently, we are seeing the effects of a professional world view in an amateur world on those who’ve lived the best part of a decade in the belly of the beast — trying to satisfy the all-consuming metabolism of the county team.

If we take at face value Lar Corbett’s reasons for withdrawing from the Tipperary panel last week, he becomes the latest in a series of GAA players in their late twenties and early thirties to decide that in our amateur games, professional expectations cannot be met indefinitely.

Last Sunday on TV — Kerry’s Paul Galvin outlined his reasons for quitting his job as a teacher a couple of years ago.

His decision was partly based on a desire to indulge his creative side and pursue more eclectic interests, but it had a lot to do with the injury he was suffering from at the time.

The classroom, Galvin explained, was not conducive to the ‘professional’ rehab of that injury. He needed to recover like a professional in order to play like a professional; the great irony being that it became one of the reasons he quit his profession in order to do so.

Eoin Brosnan’s form over the last year tells us that players who walk away and return to the inter-county game, do so with a clearer perspective. Brosnan, like his team-mate Mike McCarthy before him, decided to get off the carousel in his late twenties because his prerogatives didn’t rhyme with the group dynamic. The demands being placed on his time had gone well beyond the recreational, the game became a chore and he needed a break. A more relaxed and mature Brosnan returned this time last year and he hasn’t looked back since.

Even if his break from the game will be for no more than five or six weeks, John Mullane’s decision to step back from the Waterford panel this week may also have similar positive outcomes.

Some might argue that a re-imagining of the games, where certain limits are placed on the amount of time spent training and on the intensity of that training, could help us row back from where we are. But try telling that to those at the top end of the game. For all the talk of shared journeys, of wonderful camaraderie, and memories to last a lifetime, nothing, absolutely nothing beats the exultant rush of winning, of being the best — or at least being part of a team who strive to be the best.

The question we need to ask now is if it really is possible to be the best without having to be so goddamn serious about it all. When Tyrone announced their arrival 10 seasons ago, their attitude and approach represented a radical departure from the prevailing notion that elite Gaelic football is serious stuff and it came as a huge surprise to learn that they didn’t actually train five or six nights a week when winning all before them. Less really was more with Mickey Harte and, whatever about other criticisms, the game of football never seemed to be a chore to them.

There is little doubt that playing at being an amateur Roy Keane brings great satisfaction and sometimes, even rewards, but as more and more players are finding out, the game comes at a cost.

As one who believes in the primacy of the volunteer over the paid professional in the GAA, I find myself agreeing in one important respect with those who don’t hold the same to be true — something must give.

What then, must we do to avoid the race to the bottom that the pursuit of success has become these last few years? Maybe we need to realise as Samuel Beckett did all those years ago, that the solution is “in impoverishment, in lack of knowledge and in taking away, in subtracting rather than in adding”.

The current approach of ‘bigger, better, faster, more’ is becoming untenable and we will continue to lose players in their prime if the professional mindset and the do-or-die intensity keeps rendering obsolete, the old amateur values on which the GAA was founded and became great.

Many believe that something to be our amateur ethos itself and that a gradual shift towards full professionalism is inevitable.

But before we capitulate fully to the forces that led Lar Corbett to his momentous decision this week, we should at least have a discussion about whether we still want to retain our amateur values or whether we should go with the professionalism that is straining to replace them.