We have this joke in the office that, if you were to put the words ‘this is what the GAA is all about’ in a tagline along with any sort of story, it will fly.
Absolutely fly.
People buy it. They want affirmation that what we’re doing is precious. That what we’re doing is more important than anything else.
That our sport is better. That it should be transcended above all. Above sport, even.
It’s lovely, in truth. Lovely until we become so arrogant that one tactic calls for a widespread cleansing ritual and a complete and urgent rewrite of the entire rule book.
And the only justification we’re offered is that Derry and Dublin on Saturday night is not what the GAA is all about.
No-one said that game was riveting stuff. No-one said that it was particularly entertaining or that those defensive tactics are a joy to watch.
I like teams tightening up in the GAA and trying to spoil the game as much as I like Jose Mourinho boringly close out a 1-0 advantage; As much as I like Floyd Mayweather Jr ducking and weaving and refusing to become involved in a brawl; As much as I liked Joe Schmidt letting a team like Italy come at the Irish.
No-one said that Derry and Dublin was like a chess match or that it was compelling. Just that it made sense. Perfect sense. Yes, it made sense not to walk into the toughest ground in the country against the best side in Ireland with their pants already around their ankles.
But then they were strung up, ostracised, and calls have been rampant for a total overhaul of a 131-year organisation because one weakened side feared the deadliest attack in the land.
And the only evidence that the prosecution is offering is hysterical scaremongering of a jury so proud and protective of what we’ve built that it will only take a throwaway comment like, ‘Jesus, you couldn’t watch it,’ to whip the entire state into an uncontrollable frenzy.
It wouldn’t be half as infuriating if someone would actually come out and articulate a genuine and logical explanation for their absolute disdain for one tactic in one sport.
No-one said every game is thrilling but there’s no excuse to rewrite history because of it. What’s the rational reason for looking to devise a whole new game off the back of someone playing tight? Instead, pundits, actual pundits who are supposed to analyse what’s happening, former players, even coaches are just throwing their hands in the air and saying this is crap.
On Monday night, Joe Brolly spoke on 2FM’s Game On and, as ever, he sucked you in like the brilliant raconteur he is. He spoke well, he was typically witty but, at the end of it, you had to really ask yourself if he had said anything at all.
Anything apart from bullshit buzz words like ‘ethos’ and ‘obligation’ used to disguise a genuine lack of argument. Saying football’s shite is not an argument. When a game is crap, no-one’s going to debate it but Brolly admitted that we were here to see ‘contests’. That’s what people want to watch. Contests.
And that’s exactly why some weaker teams set up the way they do. Instead of Derry getting their arses handed to them on a plate – you know, that manly thing they should’ve done – they took a dogged game to injury time with just one score separating them from the might of Dublin. They competed. They contested.
What else should they have done? Played three full forwards, took their 30-point beating, and walked back up the road with their heads held high that the integrity of the game had been respected.
You know, I spoke to six or seven current county footballers as well. I happened to bump into them in the shop this morning and they looked sheepish about Brolly’s comments.
If Joe Brolly had his way, we wouldn’t need managers and we wouldn’t even need an entire championship campaign.
If he had his way, only two teams could win the All-Ireland every year. Instead, in 21 seasons from 1993, we’ve had 10 different champions. Five in this last decade of muck football.
If Joe Brolly had his way, Dublin would be steamrolling through everyone right now. It hasn’t even been a year since they looked unstoppable in the championship and there were already calls to split the county in two. Because they had won one All-Ireland in a row.
People were talking about developing an intermediate All-Ireland because it was pointless. Teams were too strong. Dublin couldn’t be stopped.
They were stopped though. They were stopped brilliantly and unexpectedly by a team with a plan and a bit of balls.
But his key argument, his only argument, is to call black white. His point is that we are in an entertainment business. He quipped that Mickey Harte should take his Tyrone team behind closed doors if they’re not trying to thrill the crowds. Because, again, GAA transcends above the rest of sport, in the whole world. It isn’t about trying to win.
“Mickey Harte said ‘we’re not in the business of entertainment’,” he said. “Well then f**k off and play behind closed doors if you’re not in the business of entertainment.”
If Brolly thinks entertainment is watching Derry taking a pointless and inevitable pelting, well then f**k off behind closed doors and watch Dublin’s shooting practice at training if you’re not in the business of sport.
Someone else agreed as they fawned over the Derry man’s free speech and urged anyone who thinks sport isn’t about entertainment to go to any sporting event around the world (as if it would prove you wrong).
Straight away, I thought of how piss the World Cup final was because Argentina tried to spoil it. I thought of Holland trying to kick Spain off the pitch four years previous but I also rationed that FIFA wasn’t in such a state of disrepair that the future inhabitants of our planet wouldn’t watch soccer if it kept going the way it was going.
Everyone was bemused by the standard of the Six Nations. It was attritional, effective warfare and no more. It saved face because, on the last day, three good teams tried to run off a bigger scoreline than the other against three pathetic outfits and each result mattered.
But that’s sport. Sometimes it’s a little unsatisfying. Sometimes someone like Tony Pulis comes along and ruins it. Someone like Jim McGuinness envisions a plan and, whilst it might not have been enthralling stuff, ask anyone in Donegal about the GAA buzz all over the county pre and post McGuinness.
If Pat Gilroy had done the ‘honourable’ thing in 2011 and went all-out-attack against Donegal in their semi final instead of adapting with a bit of cop on and astuteness, they would’ve been beaten and Dublin would never have bridged that gap back to ’95.
And Brolly holds up that 70-minute stand-off that ultimately won Dublin an All-Ireland as the antiphysis of ‘what the GAA is all about’. Why? Because there were only 14 scores that day.
No-one needn’t mention Derry’s Ulster final victory in 1993 when they edged out Donegal 0-8 to 0-6.
But that’s alright. We weren’t booing. We weren’t scowling. We were celebrating. But stop harping back to a golden era that didn’t exist.
Speak to legends like Shane Curran, speak to Joe’s team mate Enda Gormley about the ‘good old days’ and they’ll soon tell you that notion is romantic rubbish. That people tend to leave out the thuggery, and the dirt, and all the other nonsense that went along with those glory years.
And, sure, whilst we’re at it, don’t bother mentioning the fact that the 2014 championship was the highest scoring championship ever. It had the highest average score per game since 1970 and the higher percentage of scores from play from the years previous.
Yet every club player in the country wouldn’t care if it came to it. Every one of them would tell you that they’d take winning a senior championship if it wasn’t entertaining; if it meant sticking 15 men behind the ball and scoring twice. People are training five or six nights a week, they want to compete and they want to win.
No-one is particularly fond of it but it’s sport and it’s competitive.
In an ideal world, you’d have good enough players to go out and take on everyone man for man. Not everyone has that luxury and not every manager has 15 years to buy to develop underage footballers into future stars.
This notion that county players owe the Gaels of Ireland something is just a twisted way of conceding that you should let the best team win. Those lads training every night, putting their lives on hold so they can be the best that they can be, they’re not the Gaels of Ireland. Sure they’re owed nothing.
Then Oisin McConville and Anthony Moyles appear on the Irish Times’ Second Captains podcast. The conversation starts off with McConville saying that Derry’s defeat to Dublin on Saturday felt like the death of Gaelic Football.
The conversation ends with a dissection of Donegal’s slick system. The conversation ends with Donegal being branded as the ‘entertainers’ and the ‘masters’ and we hear a love-in for the selfless work their players go through.
That actually, genuinely happened.
But somebody has to do something.
After all, it turns out that the GAA is so fragile that one system can really obliterate the whole sport.
It turns out no-one will ever watch our sport again because they saw a game at the weekend that didn’t blow their hair back, when all three semi-final matches in 2014 were probably some of the finest spectacles ever.
When this Dublin side could go on to possibly be the greatest team ever, if they wanted.
And it turns out that this defensive cancer really is spreading right through the core of the GAA and it will stop at nothing. It’s not like the two biggest perpetrators are sitting bottom of Division One about to be relegated.
Sure underage managers are even doing it.
Well then sack your idiot underage manager, for God’s sake. Don’t throw the establishment on its head because someone is trying to win a game at senior level.
And don’t suggest that the GAA isn’t about winning when, by its very nature, its driver is flying your local flag, representing your community, and going to war with your brothers to show that your home can conquer the land.
Don’t suggest it’s anything less.
But sure what would I know? I’m only young.
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