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This week, a new feature for Talking Balls – By the Short and Curlies. Our team of reporters round the land shine a light into the orifices of the GAA to look at those small but insignificant details that make the GAA the world’s greatest sporting organisation (unless you work for RTE’s Late Late Show that is).

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Beached Whale Dies in Cork

Talking Balls was saddened to hear of the death of a 65 foot fin whale in West Cork. Washed up, beached or just exhausted, cephologists are exploring the theory that the magnificent creature simply threw itself ashore in exasperation at the Cork hurlers’ ongoing dispute with Gerald McCarthy. “I don’t see why they can’t just whale away” said one tearful onloooker. Neither the washed up giant or the hurlers were available for comment.

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A Letter from the President

Talking Balls received this very personal communication from An Uachtaran last week before the shambolic Late Late Show hit the screens. We suspect Nioclas didn’t know what was coming down the track when he invited countless unwitting GAA fans to join the celebrations.

Late Late Show Special

A Chara,

I would like to let you know that RTE will host a special tribute to the GAA to celebrate our 125th anniversary on the Late Late Show on this evening Friday, 9th January 2009 at 9.30pm.

Mise le meas,

Nioclas O’Braonain

Uachtaran CLG

An Open Letter From Talking Balls

We replied thus. Please feel free to use it in your own correspondence with Croke Park and RTE.

Late Late Show Special Nioclas, A Chara

Thank you for you recent correspondence concerning an RTE programme about the GAA. I tuned in as you suggested at 9.30pm on Friday evening. I think however that you must have got the timings wrong as the programme I was watching had nothing whatsoever to do with the GAA.

Is Mise etc,

Talking Balls

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Drumming Up Support

Croke Park supremo Peter McKenna has revealed that Larry Mullen jr, a drummer with Ireland’s most famous band and also a member of U2, has composed a special score to be aired at the official opening of the 125th Celebrations. The former Artane Boys Band tub thumper will showcase his ‘exclusive composition’ after the Tyrone -Dublin match at the end of the month. (Keep it short Larry or everyone will have fecked off to the bar – TB.) Said McKenna: “A whole sound sequence at the end has been created and laid down by Larry Mullen. That’s a first for the stadium. That’s going to make a massive draw. I heard it last night and it’s really special, the best of Irish music as only someone like Larry Mullen could direct.” Talking Balls was treated to an exclusive preview of the piece. There are two endings – in the event of a Dublin victory there is the sound of what can only be described as the combined voices of the Hill blowing raspberries at the Tyrone support. If Tyrone win there is the Sound of Silence.

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And Speaking of Dubs and Drumming

Looks Like Diarmuid Connelly was drummed out of the Dublin training camp in La Manga and sent home for a breach of discipline by Pat Gilroy. Or as the management team said he was one of a number of players ‘unable to train.’

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Spillane Wants to Pull the Horn (in)

Kerry Legend and Late Late Show collaborator Pat Spillane has asked that London be hoofed out of the national leagues and New York heave-ho-ed from the Connacht Championship. Says Pat “You have to ask if over the years the involvement of London in the league has been money well spent. I believe it hasn’t….” he went on, and on, and on. “…Surely to God the money should be ploughed into development of underage structures in Britain because that’s the future of the game over there.” On the Big Apple: “”It costs a couple of hundred thousand euro a year for counties to travel to play New York and in tough times like these that’s ridiculous.” Better a waste of space than a waste of money then Pat?

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A Long Way From Clare to Here? You Bet!

Clare’s Ruan GAA club has submitted the following motion which is likely to be considered at Congress in April.

“Any individual or group of individuals, conspiring to influence the result of a match in a manner that is incompatible with the ethics of sport or the rules of Gaelic Games, will be liable to a suspension or fine, or both. Additionally the disciplinary body of CLG (Cumann Luathcleas Gael) may also disbar any individual or group of individuals from partaking in any GAA related activities up to and including a life ban for serious infractions of this rule.”

For those of you who have no idea whatsoever what this is about, or can’t understand GAA Motion-speak, Talking Balls is pleased to offer the following translation:

“Anyone found matchfixing GAA games will be fined and suspended – possibly for life if the offence is serious enough.”

(As it is written, influencing a match in a way that is ‘incompatible with the ethics of sport of the rules of Gaelic Games’ would cover a large majority of football matches especially relegation play offs!) Anyway, you have been warned!

RTE’s special Late Late Show to celebrate the 125^th Anniversary of the GAA on Friday night was limper than an old men’s nursing home the night before the viagra’s dished out. And that Pat Kenny wouldn’t know an O’Neills size five if it had bounced in there and hit him on the head.

And as for the panellists? When the camera panned the audience Talking Balls thought, ‘aw shite, if this is the audience, who’s gonna be on the stage?’ We didn’t have to wait long. First up those well known GAA stalwarts Eamon Dunphy and Bertie Ahern. Dunphy sat there trying to justify his existence – culminating in some shite about being humbled to be in the room with the greatest people in the world. As for the former Taoiseach – for the love of Jazes!

He revealed he was used to getting freebies from an early age, his brother Maurice lifted him over the stiles at Croker ‘Couldn’t afford to pay eh eh’ giggled the Bert. Big surprise there, they get it with the mother’s milk these boys.

‘A lot of people won’t be able to afford to pay in the next year either’, chortled Pat Kenny – a singularly crass remark in the week 1900 jobs were lost in Limerick. ‘Ho ho’ enjoined Bertie his big over-foundationed face saying what we all know: ‘I’ll be alrite, Pat.’

Bertie told us matter of factly that he didn’t make it to the 60/61 final but he made it to the Down Dublin final which had over 70,000 at it. According to Bertie that is. Obviously his memory of the GAA is as reliable as his memory of other things in the past. Down of course never played Dublin in an All Ireland Final in the sixties. Bertie was non-plussed and drove her on: ‘I remember everything from about 60 on.’

Pat Kenny’s crassometer was obviously running low so he hit Mickey Harte with a comment about his ‘own Ronaldo stunt’ a reference to Harte’s car accident late last year. Mickey looked about as amused as if he’d just been told Sean Cav was signing for Aussie Rules after all. This just after Kenny stuck a picture of Dooher lifting Sam under Dara O’Se’s nose. Now Talking Balls has seen Dara stretch a fella on the pitch for less… Please O’Se, hit him, we roared at the telly.

Things had been bad enough up to then, but then RTE hit us with their coup de grace. Brush Shiels. Sitting there grinning like the banjo player from Deliverance, resplendent in a ridiculous leather jacket emblazoned with Ireland that he must have bought from NoTaste.com. He was woeful. Someone should have told Pat Kenny that there is more to the GAA than Dublin in the fifties, and Dublin in the sixties, and how great it was living close to Croke Park, and that Dublin and Kerry were rivals but that was thirty years ago. What can you say about Shiels performance of the ‘Fields of Athenry?’ He buck lept about the place – if I’d been near him I’d a driven the butt of hurl so far into his ribs… What the significance was to the GAA? God Alone Knows.

And so it went on. Eileen Dunne, never misses an All Ireland. Yawn Yawn. Neither does an oul lad down our lane, wears a tweed jacket, peaked cap and houlds his trousers up with a bit of twine – he’d have been more craic than yon one. Pat Spillane? Ireland’s second least popular presenter after Dunphy.

Babs Keating was one of the few hurling people about the place – he made an important reference to the GAA in the North during the Troubles but when Peter Quinn made the same point he was unceremoniously cut off by Kenny who obviously didn’t want a bit of reality to break through the leprechaunery and forty shades of green. Nickey Brennan? Word to the wise: ‘too much make-up Nickey – you looked like the Widow Twankey.’

It was risible. At least Des Cahill made an attempt to talk for the real Association – in fact had Cahill presented the show it may have been watchable. Where was the talk of the ban, the arguments over Croke Park, the pay for play and the GPA; the great role of the club, the cultural elements – so many overlooked. Scor got one mention at the end which led to Ulster firebrand Micheal Greenan calling the show ‘an affront’ and ‘a scandal’. Michael Greenan v Pat Kenny – now that would be a Celebrity Deathmatch I’d pay to see. Even Greenan on the panel would have made better television. Sean Kelly mightn’t have been too comfortable sitting in the front row right nuff.

So then RTE, from Talking Balls and from our readers you get Nil Point. Opportunity missed. Next?

Around the Country, GAA-folk will be gathering together these wet weekends to take part in that yearly GAA ritual – the Club Annual General Meeting. The one time of the year when gnarled oul fellas that you haven’t seen in a long twelvemonth appear out of the woodwork to point out some obscure administrative ruling. This in effect means they can filibuster the entire meeting for an hour or so, thus depriving the rest of you valuable drinking time, away from the wife or girlfriend under the pretence of transacting invaluable club business.

Recent administrative professionalism filtering down from the Powers That Be in the bureaucracy means that the AGM isn’t what it used to be. Nowadays motions have to be submitted in writing in advance thereby eliminating the possibility of a prolix, verbose and often drink-induced motion being raised from the floor on the day of the AGM. If folks haven’t got their act together they cannot shanghai the club’s business the way they used to. Take a moment reader, to reminisce about the now-rarely-heard motion from the floor, and give praise.

Back in the good old days when nobody really gave a feck, or fewer did than do now, every January lads gathered round a Calor Heater in a ball-freezing parish hall to discuss the pressing matters of the day that would dictate that year’s business. Whether the club should provide socks to all senior players; whether the lotto should have four numbers or three (cue a treatise on the probability of winning from an over-mathematicised former ship’s radio engineer who really needed a better sex life) to a heated argument on the costs of paying some oul bollix to cut the grass on the pitch rather than do it theirselves.

The Election of Officers was another piece of theatre. The Club secretary – wizened, eyes scrunched up in paranoia, a fixture for seventeen years, yet worried that rumblings of a stalking horse candidate or indeed a new ruling from Croke Park could render him powerless. The Chairman, an oracle of tales of yore but feckless at chairing meetings. The Treasurer, still in possession of his parents’ first communion cash. Last year he introduced a motion, and was successful, that gave him sole rights on the distribution of sliotars for training and matches. Any new sliotars requested had to be sought in writing in triplicate, along with an account of the circumstances leading to the loss of any sliotars heretofore supplied. Thus the camogie freetaker was instructed not to strike her frees so hard at one rival club’s ground as their ballstop was not of the required gauge to halt a sliotar, the club being a football only club. Likewise, the Treasurer had a word with a Seamus Carey’s dog Tickles, after the audacious hound made off with an average of a sliotar a session over a period of pre-season training.

When these learned gentlemen came for re-election – woe betide the fella that dared suggest they had served their time, that it was time for new blood. To do this was the GAA Club Equivalent of treason. One year the over-seasoned office holders resigned en masse over some slight uttered by a woman at the AGM. “You oul fellas should catch yerselves on sittin there in tracksuits…” was the gist of what she said. Taking umbrage the entire executive walked out and had to be cajoled back in again by a triumvirate of the Parish priest, the County Chairman and for some obscure reason the Local Bank Manager. Reassurances given that there would be no more ‘unwelcome’ comments from ‘women’, the Officers duly returned to their seats. The more visionary members saw this as an opportunity lost but dared say nothing for fear of being ostracized and suffering reprisals e.g. being denied access to Championship tickets.

At his stump speech the secretary put his head down and burst into a remarkable thirty minute monologue, the exorbitant length due to the fact that (a) he repeated every point three times, albeit in different words and (b) head down, eyes focused on the table in front, he failed to notice that a goodly number of his clubmates had dozed off in the manner of middle aged men after a feed of Sunday dinner.

The AGM is also distinguished of course by the absence of the vast majority of players whose arses are too precious to be bored off them by talk of motions, elections and the like, and by the presence of at least one new member – spaniel-like full of enthusiasm and bright ideas. Typically they never return for a second year due to a fatal dose of disillusionment adminsistered at the AGM in the fashion of a slow but lethal silent killer, leaving the same folks to attend year on year on year and year on year on year.

Anyone propose that motion…? Do we have a seconder…?

Shock news in Derry as popular Co Board Chairman Seamus McCloy announces he’s to hold a Co Board meeting.

Ladbrokes, the new Oak Leaf shirt sponsors, are offering a range of spread bets on the number of county board meetings there will be in 2009. Ladbrokes also offer a page of specials on things Brian McGilligan might say about Seamus McCloy this season and better again, things McCloy might say about Big Brian.

Best value for Talking Balls is the 10,000-1 offered that noted football fan McCloy will be heard saying: ll the resources of the Derry Co Board will be put fully behind Brian and the hurlers and their quest for success.” The odds-on favourite however at a wallet busting 1-50 is the line ” Any chance of introducing Japanese ash disease so we can get rid of theses effin hurley bats?”

Ger Loughnane makes a shock return to management as manager of the Waterford hurling team following Davy Fitz’s walkout. Fitz was annoyed that yet another player recorded him for YouTube delivering a team talk. This time however it it was in fact a recording of Davy talking to himself in his hotel room during the team holiday. Davy is reinstated as manager after the players refuse to play for Loughnane after he tells Clare FM the Waterford men should be known as the ‘Daisies, not the Deise.’

Meanwhile, in Connacht, John Morrison is spotted with the Leitrim senior football squad in a flotilla of rubber dinghies on the Shannon in sub zero temperatures. Using a loud hailer to shout instructions, Beefy was heard to shout “right lads, the papers said you sank without a trace last year. Pull the plugs out of the floor of the dinghy and swim back to the shore. Last man back is the captain this season.”

A lovestruck Honeymooning couple from Oughterard reveal that Nicky Brennan was brilliant company during their three week cruise of the Caribbean.

Following Crossmaglen’s shock defeat by fourteen points to Drom, manager Donal Murtagh reveals he was caught out by how mobile the Limerick men were. Sez Donal: “In Ulster club football, we’re used to big strong boys playing against us and trying to knock the shite out of us. Club football isn’t about the likes of Francie Bellew and and Tony McEntee running after wee light fellas. We played all the football when we could get the ball.” Back to the drawing board then in Cross. But first the club’s annual six month holiday from any meaningful matches. See you in October Lads.

Mickey Harte reveals that he is considering adding an eight year old from Errigal Ciaran to his squad. ‘It’s a good place to be from” sez Mickey. “If you’re young enough, you’re old enough, and he’s certainly good enough. So, we’re very happy with the place we’re in right now.” Meanwhile Tyrone field their newly formed Junior team formed from Division Three players for the floodlit game against Dublin. The game is postponed, following floodlight failure five minutes into the first half.

In the subsequent investigation Pilar Caffrey is commended by his superiors “For spotting and dealing with an imminent danger and taking the essential but extreme action of pulling the plug, without concern for his own safety and security.” The match will be replayed in Omagh. Tickets go on sale priced €150 each (two for €400) for a game marketed as “The Battle of Omagh – Bigger Handbags.”

Meanwhile New York GAA hold a glitzy Press Affair at the Waldorf Astoria to announce that unknown Cork émigré and media mogul Daniel Mór Cusack has assumed control of the Big Apple’s GAA affairs. To a packed ballroom he reveals that New York will be changing their colours to red and white hoops; will be known in future as the ‘New York Rebel Yells’ and will feature a number of yet to be announced ‘prominent GAA players’ who have relocated and transferred en masse. The glitzy do ends with the unveiling of Roy Keane as player manager supported by Mick McGurn and Seanie McGrath as the Rebel Yell’s management team. Sez Keane, “Tis great to be back in Cork, boy. C’mon ye rebels,”.

Nicky Brennan returns from a trade mission sourcing cheap sustainable ash in the Southern Alps. It is understood to be particularly pliable and suited to the rigours of the GAA. Seamus McCloy was unable to join the trip due to other commitments.

Ulster railway Cup Manager Joe Kernan welcomes the news that the Interprovincial competition is to be played at half time in Manchester United’s Champions League Quarter Final saying ‘There’ll be a fair number of gaelic fans there. We’ve put the structures in place and we’re confident the fans will like it.” Meanwhile is it revealed that the Hurling variety will take place during Munster’s Heineken Cup match against Biarritz. Sez non-plussed Munster manager Justin McCarthy: “We are so fast we will just hurl round the rugby boys. Sure they’ll all be lying on the ground.” Either way, the GAA was nominated for a Marketing Innovation Award for the innovative way it has promoted both games.

News from Kildare suggest that Kieran McGeeney had his teeth cosmetically whitened. The story emerged on the back of reports that the players had seen Geezer smile for the first time in two years. In his drole, south Armagh accent Geezer told the expectant press corps, “No comment, but the Inches we need are all around us.”

New York Mogul Daniel Mór Cusack flies the GAA press corps back to New York for the third time in two weeks to reveal that the Continuity Cork Hurling squad from 2008 have – as speculated – transferred en masse to New York under an obscure and rarely used, and much less understood bye law written by Frank Murphy that allows players he has deemed surplus to requirements to go wherever the hell they like so long as they get te feck out of Cork, Boy. The team will wear gear sponsored by adidas. The hoops and the three stripes – a winning combination. Donal Og Cusack will also wear a striped team strip as goalie, although his stripes will be more intense than anyone else’s.

In Ulster the Donegal manager John Joe Doherty comes under pressure after two old ladies gatecrash a county board meeting and ask for his removal. It turns out Doherty drove over Sorcha Ni Gallachoir’s cat in Gaoth Dobhair and drove off without telling her. Sorcha (aged 93) and her sister Treasa (aged 97) expressed their outrage. “My mother lived through the famine and never had to put up with this she said (as gaeilge obviously). It’s bad enough them stag parties from across the border but this is not on. Besides, I thought that young man McIver was Donegal manager?” The Donegal Co Board schedule an emergency meeting to consider the matter. Charlie Mulgrew and Declan Bonnar are reported to be ‘interested’ should Doherty be forced to resign over the Cat controversy.

Nicky Brennan gets a job work for Lonely Planet following his retirement as An Uachtarain Cumann Luthchleas Gael. The first three episodes will concentrate on Long Haul Destinations; Planning Your Travel Arrangements; and Flying Budget the O’Leary way. It is understood that for the third episode he already had a holiday booked in Waikiki so Dessie Farrell has agreed to film that episode instead.

Ahead of the Championship Babs Keating and Joe Kernan chair a seminar for managers on the success of the new rules. “It’s easy for them to blether, they don’t have any teams to manage,” one well known under pressure Bainisteoir from Down was heard to mutter. A record 900 yellow cards were issued during the national league. Armagh were reported to be replacing the sideline grass at the Athletic Grounds with artificial turf such was the traffic damage caused by the coming and going of players during matches.

The new GAA logo is causing a bit of a stir. Apparently it bears more than a striking similarity to an organisation in the United States called the Gay Activists Association. The problem only comes to light after the New York Rebel Yells Opening Championship tie is broadcast live on primetime, wall to wall, American TV, even bumping an inspirational speech by new Uachtaran Barack O’Bama. GAA head Bombardier Christy Cooney is unavailable for comment. A number of Rebel Yells players appear as the cover feature in a risque magazine called the Perfect Player’s Body (which for legal reasons we have been asked to report, has no association with the GPA).

Things are so bad with the recession and all, that a decision is made to play the Tyrone and Armagh Championship tie over the best of three games, all at Croker to generate som cash. The series is played out to a record breaking attendance and after three games, the sides are level. A further two matches fail to separate the Ulster giants. Ulster GAA take the unprecedented decision to jointly award the title, otherwise the Ulster Championship mightn’t get finished til’ October – a bit like the hurling a few years back. Croke Park promptly suspends all Ulster teams from the All Ireland series. Dublin appeal the decision to the DRA.

Meanwhile Croke Park’s Head of Games Pat Daly expresses his satisfaction that the new rules are proving so effective. The average number of goals scored in a championship game is now seven whilst record tallies of points have been recorded in a series of high scoring affairs. The average number of players now remaining on the field after seventy minutes of championship football is 23. Sources in Croke Park suggest a move towards making 13-a-side games the norm are welcomed by Armagh manager Peter McDonnell. “At least that way we would have thirteen men, not seven or eight which is the story at the minute.” An under eight match at a Cul Camp in Derry finishes ahead of regulation time when there is only one youngster left on the pitch after sustained pulling and dragging and two feigned injuries.

Nicky Brennan comments from his visit to Siberia sourcing sustainable Ash ‘This is the way to go with our games.”

The Dublin bandwagon is creating its own momentum as usual, with the Evening Herald devoting an entire issue to ‘The Dubs’ and the Road to Croker focusing exclusively on them for an entire month. Rumours abound of a new series on TV3 called ‘I’m a Culchie, Get Me out of Here’ such is the unbearable Dub-hype in the capital.

After a series of facile victories, manager Pat Gilroy floats the idea that they would be better playing in Ulster. Antrim Chairman John McSporran agrees. “The hurling in Leinster seems to work for us he declares. And, with the Dubs out of the football, we would fancy ourselves to win the Leinster Football Championship if we could play there. I’m sure they would relish playing the Ulster teams – with the exception of Tyrone of course.” He then rambled on incoherently for a while and nobody took any notice as usual. Inspirational Antrim football Baker Bradley added “We think its important to put the respect back in Antrim football.” Now how many times has he gone and said that?

Way down south, the Cork hurlers withdraw from the Munster Championship such is the abject nature of their squad minus the 2008 Rebels. They apply to and are accepted to play in Ulster under an obscure ruling created by Frank Murphy in the mists of time that allows County teams in exceptional circumstances, but particularly when they might get tanked, to up sticks and feck off to yon place.

John McSporran changes his tune when a rampant Dublin hurling team eviscerate Antrim at Croke Park in the Leinster Hurling Championship. Conal Keaney leads the way with a net-busting tally of five goals and twelve points. Back in Ulster the shock of the decade as Monaghan beat Cork in the Ulster Hurling Championship. An upbeat Gerald McCarthy announces the team are fully focused on the Christy Ring Cup. “We never thought we would even get here at the turn of the year. It will be an honour to try and bring the Ring Cup back to its spiritual home.”

Nicky Brennan is guest of honour at the Inti Raymi celebrations in Cuzco Peru and reports exclusively on the occasion for his new Travel TV programme Nicky N’Vest Igates.

The Kerrymen wake up and hammer the blue bejasus out of Waterford, Limerick, Clare and Cork in the new round robin Munster Football Championship. Tommy Walsh is at his explosive best replete with his new style sleeveless vest. Paul Galvin is arrested outside Fitzgerald Stadium for slapping the notebook out of a Traffic Warden’s hand as he writes him a ticket for illegal parking. Galvin subsequently misses the Munster Final in an unusual case of Deja Vu.

The whole matter is brought to a head when Aidan O’Mahony gets knocked over remonstrating with a representative of a car clamping company as he stops briefly to pick up a prescription at his local pharmacy. Obviously unaware of O’Mahony’s day job the clamper is whisked off to the clink for assaulting a police officer.

In Leinster Kilkenny record a facile victory against Offaly despite fielding with only eight players. Cody reveals he is resting the remainder of the squad for a forthcoming Top Cats match and shocks the hurling world by explaining that the Liam McCarthy is not the team’s main priority this season. “We’ll take another look at it next year when we’re going for the five in a row but sure should be handy enough won this year, although I hear this New York team are good.”

Cody reveals the team have been apperoached by multi billionaire Alan Stanford of £1 million cricket fame to play a one-off challenge match against the New York Rebel Yells. Winner to take all in the cash bonanza. Rebel Yell Keeper and GPA stalwart Donal Og Cusack will not be drawn on the proposed match stating that the GPA do not support Pay for Play. “Maybe if the money could be paid as mileage expenses, water, diet supplements, mobile phone bills – that might work…” he muses.

The Rebel Yells meanhsil continue to cut a dash on the field and off it – winning the Ulster Championship by beating Antrim easily enough despite the protests of John McSporran, Baker Bradley and Sambo McNaughton along the way. The Rebel Yells half back line is in great from despite the ‘curse of Christmas 08′. “I know we are in Leinster but these boys shouldn’t be in Ulster” complains McSporran bitterly.

New Derry football manager Damian Cassidy reveals that the new format Derry championship in which each team is guaranteed eight games isn’t helping the county team preparations for the Championship qualifier against Longford. “It’s over fifteen years since we won Sam. The slaggin’ I had to listen to in Tyrone last year was shockin’. Something needs to change.

RTE reports that Nicky Brennan’s Travel show has broken all records and announces that the soundtrack featuring Nickey crooning David Bowie’s Ashes to Ashes will be entered for a Grammy Award. Or maybe its an Emmy. Whatever. Is there no end to this man’s talent?