Talking Balls Issue 43 - Well Informed Ignorance
Talking BallsThis week in Talking Balls, hurling staggers from strength to strength in Derry. Question for Croke Park, are county officials supposed to uphold the right and proper rules of the GAA which means supporting football AND hurling? Read on.
The Cork strike is over or is it? As pundits reflect on the lessons learned and the issues for other county boards, the Cork hurlers get back into training and the footballers look forward to life under a new manager.
We consider the impact and implications of the attendance of a ‘British Royal’ at Croke Park. All the back woodsmen are making one last appearance on the message boards for this one. Us, well we’re taking an unbiased view. We reflect on the trials and tribulations of the Fermanagh footballers and also Kevin McCourty playing the hokey cokey again with Antrim football.
The intermediate and junior club finals have been played in Croker over the last two weeks. We reflect on days of glory for the eight clubs involved - winners all.
If you are in Dublin next week - look out Squareball is in town for Futura. For everyone else, there’s always Talking Balls.
Oak Leafs to Burn the Ash, All of It
With all the redevelopment work ongoing at Owen Beg, Doire’s training centre, speculation is mounting that work may include construction of an incinerator to burn all the hurls in the county.
In a county where the voice of hurling is seldom heard these days, despite being the reigning Ulster Under-21 Champions and having won the Nicky Rackard Cup in 2006 iomanadors in the county will tell you hurling is at its lowest ebb for some time. In its recently announced master fixture list for the season the Derry CCC has handed Friday nights over to reserve football. This follows on the heels of the creation of a Champions League Championship that gives teams two extra football matches but still includes a quarter final stage - meaning less space for hurling. The sub-committee that dealt with hurling has been booted into touch. County manager, ‘93 All Ireland winner, Brian McGilligan is railing King Lear like against the disservice being done to hurling in the county. A particular target for his anger is county Chairman Seamus McCloy. McCloy, from the great Bellaghy club who despite their camogie team wouldn’t know a hurl if Cuchullain himself landed in to kill a few dogs, does little to hide his disregard for hurling. In fact disregard maybe isn’t the right word at all.
Imagine a county minor hurling manager being told that the players couldn’t have tracksuits because they were going to get beaten by Antrim in the first round of the Championship anyway. Imagine a county minor manager being told here was no funds for away matches because it was a waste of money. Imagine an attempt to halt an Under 14 squad going to the Tony Forrestal Cup in 2007. If you can imagine these things then that’s good because these things may or may not have happened in Doire at the behest of the Chairman.
Rumours are also abounding that a sign will be erected over the entrance to Owen Beg, on the way to the hurl incinerator, big and proud with the Oak Leafer cluster. No Hurling Macht Frei.
Sing When You’re Winning
According to the weekend papers, in a new book, sports psychologists Aidan Moran and John Kremer make reference to an unnamed gaelic footballer and his free kick routine.
Apparently referring to Charlie Redmond, they relate how this player placed the ball and sang as he ran up to kick the ball ‘We Built This City on Rock and Roll.’ Tyrone supporters will think that he should relive a few scenes from Gone in Sixty Seconds or better gone in Sixteen Minutes after his failure to leave the field in an astonishing show of jolly-jackeeneery when he was sent off. The matter is now immortalised in a book.
What other songs would suit a player’s pre-free-kick routine. Well we are pretty certain for Oisin it has to be the Kenny Rogers classic; Mossy Quinn would have that old eighties classic Missing You. Owen Mulligan’s recent penchant for dropping close in frees short has him singing George Harrison’s My Sweet Lord, whilst Joe Canning apparently hums The First Cut is the Deepest as he sails another spectacular sideline over the bar. Peter Canavan’s famous effort that ended Armagh’s championship in 2005, was accompanied by him crooning Simon and Garfunkel’s Sound of Silence, memorably captured by a superb sequence on YouTube.
Bets of all perhaps was Damian Fitzhenry’s boomer against Tipp last year to the sound of Queen’s Hammer to Fall before he legged her back up the field.
If music be the food of scores, play on!
Club Finals in Croke - A Club Dream Come True
On Sunday in Croker Moycullen (Galway) defeated Fingal Ravens (Dublin) and Canovee (Cork) beat the Rock (Tyrone) to annex the Intermediate and Junior Club Football Finals at Croker.
Last week Conahy Shamrocks (Kilkenny) beat Moyle Rovers (Tipperary) in the Junior Hurling Final whilst, Clonkill (Westmeath) ousted Tommy Larkins (Galway) to lift the Intermediate title. For these players and for their clubs their day in the sun in Croker will be a never to be forgotten experience in the history of the club.
These games included contributions from double football All Star Declan Browne, hurling for Moyle Rovers and by all accounts the star turn in the match, and All Ireland winner Ciaran Gourley for the Rock in the Junior Football Final. Nickey Brennan will hardly have a prouder moment in Croker than when he handed the Cup over to his clubmate Eoin Murphy.
County success is all very well, but the club is personal. Whilst only one team can bring home the silverware, the achievement and the experience gained from having their mettle forged and tested in a provincial and all Ireland series may ultimately prove to be the ultimate legacy. Age will not wither it.
Well done from Talking Balls to all the lads that played for club and county in Croker over the last two weekends.
Fogbound in Fermanagh
Ernesiders Fermanagh are still on course to complete a National League campaign without playing a match. For the second round of games in a row, the men from the watery county had their match called off thanks to fog in Lisnaskea.
This wasn’t the sectarian sort of fog that caused Fermanagh county hurler to temporarily quit the game, but the damper sort that the folks down round the lakes are familiar with.
Talking Balls reflects that surely Cork could have thrown out a few ‘dog ate my homework’ or ‘there was fog’-type excuses to get them out of playing matches during their recent industrial action. They wouldn’t have had to let on to the GAA that there was a problem in the county and would have avoided all the speculation and debate on whether they should or should not be allowed to play in the National Leagues in football and hurling.
Meanwhile, Fermanagh’s next scheduled outing is against Longford on 2 March. Give Paddy Power a ring and see what odds you can get on Fermanagh playing that match. Dublin have said they can’t play Cork until November so maybe they can arrange a double header with one of the Fermanagh matches.
Another Fine Mess
So. Another eventful if matchless week in the Rebel County. The story so far. . .
The county Board go into binding arbitration, the players hmmmm and haaaaaa a bit because they know, that if Kieran Mulvey decides Teddy Holland and his merry men stay in post then they have to accept that, thereby conceding the main plank of their protest. Eventually they agree to enter arbitration, obviously having been tipped the wink by Mulvey or a go-between that there will be an outcome they will be able to work with. No doubt Donal Óg learned from his dalliance with Martin McGuinness in New York that what goes on in the corridors of power between two warring factions is called ‘negotiating’ and in this case the players seem to have played an impeccable match. The only blot on their copy book was a binding agreement not to strike again. Only a fool would fail to recognise that if the Cork Co Board f*** with these players again they will walk and a strike won’t even come into it.
So the players enter binding arbitration knowing their demands are all in the bag - the removal of Teddy Holland, the manager’s right to his own selectors and the inclusion of two player reps on the management appointment committee - which was something they probably weren’t that pushed on.
The outcome out the other side of the swinging doors then. . . Kieran Mulvey recommends that Teddy Hollan resigns in the interests of Cork GAA.
Now here’s where it becomes farcical. Teddy Holland now won’t resign because two of the people the Cork county board appointed for him won’t resign - he didn’t appoint them, The selectors then preferring instead to force their own removal as a point of principle. So on Monday night the board will have to secure approval from their delegates at a meeting at Páirc Ui Chaoimh to formally end the involvement of Teddy Holland and the four selectors.
Meanwhile All-Ireland winning U21 coach Tony Leahy is considered a leading contender to replace Holland. Gerald McCarthy had his first training session yesterday with the hurlers in Pairc Ui Caoimh - there are no reports of Frank Murphy having attended the training session.
As we all move on then, we’ll leave this sorry saga with a few well chosen words from Teddy, who in a statement more than tinged with bitterness and regret, unleashed a few well chosen pocs and boots at his adversaries, the players he was brought in to manage. . .
“The notion that the players somehow monopolise a desire to win is a myth. Last year’s All-Ireland Final was the most chaotic, abject capitulation in the history of Cork football. It lacked all the qualities which I stand for and which I hope the players can learn in time.
“In their more honest moments, the players might reflect on their performances that day and use them as a motivation to drive them forward.
”In attempting to reach success, players must keep in mind that they are carried on the shoulders of tens of thousands of Cork men, women and children who admire them and envy them. Dare I say it, managers, selectors and boards also make their own important contribution.
“To reach a resolution, my head on a plate was the players’ demand. I am quite happy in my own skin with what I did. I was not used and was not a pawn in anyone’s game. I looked forward to working with the players, to improving their performances and in bringing forward perhaps as many as 12 new players onto the panel.
“Going forward, it might help if players were humble enough to accept that we are all transient and replaceable. The Cork jersey is held in trust by us all - players, coaches, mentors and the board, and it is our role to do the very best for it and what it represents.
“There is nothing “them and us” about achieving success. It is “us” or it is nothing.”
Fixtures Fixtures Everywhere and All the Boards Did Shrink
Dublin have announced - with all the pouting of a minxed-up tart playing hard-to-get - that they might be able play Cork in November or December such is the fixtures pressure.
This is the county remember that runs its championships off over a few weeknights under lights in the depths of winter.
Meath too, are behaving like a spoilt bitch, mascara running down their cheeks as they say they won’t play Cork not matter what they are asked to do. Having had the dress, the support arrangements in place, the hair done and the make up plastered on waiting for the Rebels to arrive and sweep them off their feet, they have turned back into a pumpkin and are back living among the ashes.
Not so the elegant, classy and graceful Cats. They will, they say, be flexible about when they’ll be playing the Rebels in their refixed hurling match.
The respective counties may be well pissed off with the Corkmen, but surely better playing a game than to sit about bitching about being stood up. Players want matches and what better motivation than to put one over on the men from Cork with all their trade-unionery.
Former Antrim Footballer McGourty in Plea For Dual Status
Occasionally uncontroversial former Antrim footballer Kevin McGourty is in the news again.
A week after being dropped from the Antrim county football panel, apparently for not going to training, the mercurial McGourty who dazzles to some effect out the field for St Galls (we think he would be more effective closer to goal but he seems to like the space and show-boatery available further afield - whatever) has been training with the Antrim hurlers.
Coincidence then that in his column in the weekly Gaelic Life newspaper McGourty makes a heartfelt plea for the return of the inter-county dual player? Not to suggest that he’s missing a point but surely you can only be a dual player if you are actually on both county squads?
To Thine Own Self be True
Ths week resident expert Ger Manas ruminates on the prospects of the Aussies coming, lookin’ talent. Don’t blame the players if they decide to go he says. All of that plus, surprising ambivalence on the Cork strike.
I see in the papers that big Anthony Tohill, yer man Pat Daly and Nickey Brennan was out sunning themselves in Dubai there and chattin’ to the Aussies about bringing back that compromise rules shite. Geezer was right when he said if they want to box they can box but if they want to play ball. . . well let’s play ball. I would do neither with that shower but that’s just me.
The lads now have said that there will be some ‘minor adjustments’ to the rules like a video referees- this is on top of the two bollixes already on the field. They’re talkin’ bout making suspensions apply to the players own sport. We’ll f***in see bout that now, ye can see that ending up at the DRA cos a fella’s name wasn’t taken in Irish by an Aussie ref.
The thing that scares the shite out of club fellas I’ve been talkin’ to this week is the proposals that the Aussies are going to start systematically scouting underage games up and down Ireland. Nickey Brennan said after his holiday in the gulf that there should be no taking players under the age of 19 and they should sort out their studies and what not. That’s all fine and dandy but look at young Martin Clarke - he went off as a youngster and he’s flyin’ at it and well looked after too. The lads of An Riocht got a glimpse of what might have been when he came back to Down and helped them win the league.
Other lads I was chattin to asked me what would I do if one of our best players was approached to play in Oz. Well the first thing I’d do would be to kick the relevant Aussie as hard up the hole as I cud, there’s few things in life as satisfyin’ as giving one of them hoors a good rootin’. As for the player? Well, they’d be under enough pressure and stress from the club and people directly and indirectly telling them what to do, how it might effect the club or county or whatnot - I’d say nothing to them unless they asked me. But, ye know what? Sometimes in yer life ye have to suit yourself and te f*** with everyone else. So, if a cub of mine had been asked would he go, it might break me heart but I’d tell him to go and do what was best for himself because if you never try ye’ll never know. That’s the long and tall of it and that’s a fact.
I was watching that Clarke fella on telly after he went to Collingwood and jaze he was some young fella. His skills were unreal but the application to training and that was second to none. The way he set about workin’ things over there, going everywhere with the ball, settlin’ in - all that. Twas great to see it in a young fella. And the Aussies too - for all I think they’re a right shower of w***ers, the level of detail they have in measuring everything from how high you can jumpt te how far ye can spit is unreal.
Some of our lads if you tell them about conditioning they think it’s that stuff the girlfriend has that he uses in the shower to soap up the lads down below. So conditioning - well weights and all that’s fine but unregulated can be a bollix. How many times have you heard of some eejit going into the gym and he tries to lift far too much in weight and ruptures hisself. The Aussies though, they had yer man Clarke doing all the right stuff, well explained and whatnot.
One fella I know was managing a senior team - he’d heard about weights and whatnot so he went off to an auction and bought up a pile of free weights. He’d have needed a tribe of Bulgarian weight lifters to get the stuff home but anyway. He lands up to the club and dumps the stuff in a store room with a few benches and that. Next night at training he puts the whole f***in shebang on the bars and says to the lads ‘I’ll tell ye fellas, we might win f**k all this year but by the end of the season every one of you will be able to lift that.’ I suppose that’s one way to cut yer squad down. Don’t get me wrong now - the oul strength is important - the Core they call it now. I see there even on Saturday evening yer man Aidan O’Mahony handed off Niall Gormley of Tyrone not once but twice as if he was an U-12. Lesson there for ye young Gormley.
I was watchin’ on at them Cork fellas making a bigger and bigger balls of their selves over the last few weeks. Whatever the ins and outs - and to be honest I don’t give a shite - I reckon me oul mate Donal Óg would need to watch himself when he’s out and about. I would say it wouldn’t be long before some random hoor offa that county board sees him walking the road and tries to run him down or he gets dragged out round the back of the pub for a durty shoein’. Same as the young lads heading off I was talkin’ bout - the thing about Donal Og is he does what he thinks is right and he’s consistent. Now whether I think he’s a bollix for all that he done with the GPA or whether he’s a great fella for being on strike and stirring up the shite doesn’t matter, he suited himself and he done what he thought was right. He’s consistent - might be as f***in mad as the march hare but ye have to say he sticks to his guns.
As some of them famous poets wrote - to thine own self be true - and whether you’re a young fella thinking about going to Oz or Cusack wonderin’ when his next strike’s comin, that’s not a bad way to go about your own business. Least you can look at yerself in the mirror - the people that do the criticizing get to see an arse in the mirror every morning.
Now that’s not to say I wouldn’t give Donal Óg the wildest root in the hole if I saw him out and about but sure, he knows that well hisself.