Wednesday 27 February 2008

Cork back but relegation issues will hurt

Cork will ‘grace’ the rest of the country with their presence in the National Football League this Sunday following the much-publicised players’ strike.
New manager Conor Counihan has delayed naming his first team since he took over from Teddy Holland but he will be missing the services of the Nemo Rangers players following their weekend success over Ballina Stephenites in the semi final of the All-Ireland club championship.
Cork have already forfeited the points from their first two games when they failed to field.
The decision to allow the Cork footballers and hurlers to compete at all after missing their first two games will become a major bone of contention when the points conceded on those occasions have a bearing later in the season on relegation issues.
Antrim in particular may have every reason to feel sore about headquarters’ failure to put Cork out of the leagues as they play the Rebels in a last round league game when the points gifted by Cork in the early rounds could make the difference between Antrim surviving in the top flight or going down.
This should never have been allowed to happen as the Rebels should have been gassed and it will be one to watch if a county other than the northerners fall on their sword on a points difference determined by the early season walk overs.

Aussies here to stay

You can’t accuse the Australian Football League of hiding its light under a bushel when it comes to its efforts to recruit GAA players to its ranks.
Ricky Nelson the former AFL player, who last week unveiled plans for a scouting network to unearth new talent, has now suggested ‘benefits’ for clubs who lose players.
While not outlining what form these ‘benefits’ will actually take it is a declaration of intent from the Aussies that they are here to stay and determined to systematically recruit Irish talent.
Donegal manager Brian McIver said today that Nelson had approached teenage star Michael Murphy and invited him down under in June.
McIver warned other counties to be wary of the Aussie recruitment drive and called on the GAA to break the link with the Australian game though the International series.
However, it’s clear that Australian interest in our players is not going away, you know.
An end to the International Rules series will not put an end to AFL attempts to poach our best young players.
The genie is well out of the bottle on this one.
The best way to keep our young players is to continue to make our games attractive to them and at some point we will, like the AFL did in the ‘70s, look at how we can open up a route to young players to benefit from their sporting talent at home, whether that’s some means of pay for play, the government grants scheme or endorsements.

Tuesday 26 February 2008

Australian horse has bolted

The attempt by a number of counties to stop the International Rules Series on the grounds that the GAA will lose more players to the Australian game is like trying to close the gate after the horse has bolted.
The Australians long ago realised the potential of the Irish game to pick up talented young players and there is a history of Irish players travelling to Australia going back to at least the early 1980s.
However, what really made the Aussies sit up and take notice was the increased levels of physical fitness and strength of the Irish players who played in the second reincarnation of the international Rules series from the 1990s until the violent scenes of the 2005 and 2006 series.
Despite reports however in Australian media that professional AFL clubs are now more interested than ever in recruiting young GAA talent people here need to keep a little perspective about all of this.
There are only a handful of Irish players plying their trade in Australia and like the steady flow of young Irish players who go on trials to soccer clubs across the water only the very few will make it in the professional Australian game.
For many young men playing in the AFL would be a dream come true to be able to play sport on a professional basis in a different culture.
We should not be down on these young people and instead maybe the answer to keeping our best young athletes in our own game might be to pay them at home.

Appeal for open draw in minor hurling

The call by Leinster Council secretary Michael Delaney for the scrapping of the provincial championships at minor and under 21 in favour of an open draw is worth serious consideration.
Delaney was honest enough to admit that his proposal will hardly even get out of the starting blocks due to the power of the lobby in favour of retaining the Munster championship.
However, even those who love the Munster championship, and I am a big fan given that it is the only competitive provincial championship left in hurling, must know that top-flight hurling is losing its appeal for the lack of any true rivalry outside the deep south.
Kilkenny have left all their Leinster rivals completely in the shade and although Dublin have made advances in their youth set-up it will be some time before the Dubs are fit to put it up to the Cats.
Delaney’s idea of giving teams at least four competitive games in an open draw format in the minor and Under 21 grades will at least give the unfancied sides more games against top-class opposition and might also improve the standard of the also rans in Leinster.
Sides like Offaly, Laois and Antrim need to be able to test themselves against the cats, Tipp, Cork and Galway on a regular basis if they are to have any chance of going into senior without an inferiority complex.
Michael Delaney has tried to open up a debate about a sacred cow in hurling but his promptings are liable to fall on deaf ears.

End of the road for Cross

Crossmaglen’s defeat in the semi finals of the All-Ireland club championship at the hands of St Vincent’s on Sunday marks the end of an era where Crossmaglen have dominated football in Armagh, Ulster and at a national level.
Cross’s dominance in their home county has been unprecedented with 12 consecutive titles during which time they have also won six Ulsters and four All Irelands.
However, although the South Armagh side were by no means outclassed by their Dublin rivals I believe that time has finally caught up with the Orchard County men.
Too many of their most experienced players are now in the twilight of their careers.
Oisin McConville, the McEntees and Francie Bellew are now all in their 30s and in fairness neither McConville or Bellew have been fully fit during this latest campaign which saw them go almost all the way.
These guys have been winners all their careers and would need a wheelie bin between them if anyone had the temerity to ask them to throw their medals in the bucket.
Cross, in fairness, have also produced a number of good young players in recent seasons with Aaron and Stephen Kernon leading the charge.
But players of the calibre of Cross’s finest only come once in a generation and Crossmaglen were blessed to have a group as talented as their talisman McConville and the McEntees come through the ranks together from the juvenile ranks on.
Every great era comes to an end and as a proud Ulsterman, I for one will miss what has been the greatest club side of my lifetime.
Thanks for the memories.

Monday 18 February 2008

Antrim win a huge step forward

Today's win by the Antrim hurlers over a Wexford side which travelled north on the back of a great win in Waterford last week is another huge step forward for a young Antrim side under Dominic McKinley and Sambo McNaughton.
Antrim were under huge pressure having lost to Dublin last week in their first round national hurling league match and badly needed a result if they are to stay up in Division One of the league.
Antrim’s next three matches are against Waterford, Kilkenny and Cork and they go in to those games more in hope than any great expectation that they will gain any more points.
However, today’s defeat of another Leinster hurling side, can only boost the northerners’ self belief and add strength to Sambo McNaughton’s call for Antrim to be allowed to compete in the Leinster hurling championship where outside Kilkenny Antrim would not be out of their depth.
McNaighton has argued that his side can only benefit from playing at better level of hurling than in the now meaningless Ulster championship.
Today’s victory was achieved too without the Dunloy contingent who are in training for their All-Ireland club semi final when they take on their nemesis Birr at Clones next Sunday.
Antrim hurling has had its share of false dawns in the past but there is a buzz about this young side and although it’s not expected to make the breakthrough this season its Walsh Cup triumph has raised expectation in a county starved of success.

Holland's head on a plate

We seem at last to be moving to a resolution of the strike by the Cork hurlers and footballers after football manager Teddy Holland’s head was delivered to the players on a plate.
Holland got caught in the crossfire in a battle, which effectively was between the Cork players and the county board.
Ironically players’ representatives will now sit down with the county board as they seek out a new manager and selectors for the county’s football team.
Teddy Holland revealed yesterday some of the hurt and the effect of the pressure piled up on him and his family over recent weeks.
He also fired off a parting salvo at a football team, which if they had faced Kerry with the same determination on the field over the last three years as they faced Teddy Holland and the county board off the field in recent weeks would be All-Ireland champions.
Holland reminded some of the Leesiders’ ‘stars’ that “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.”
The GAA’s accommodation of the ‘Rebels’ has been spineless as they bent over backwards to enable Cork to compete in this year’s national leagues despite their failures to field.
We will await with interest the decision on the next club or county side who falls foul of the rules of any other GAA competition to see will they be rewarded with the same generosity as the Cork teams.

Decision to postpone Cork games may cost GAA

Cork’s games in the National Football League and Hurling League this weekend have now been postponed to facilitate a resolution in the dispute between the county panels and the county board.
The Leesiders’ players have been on strike action for several weeks now and already they have missed fixtures in this year’s leagues.
Failure to play in this week’s games should have meant automatic dismissal from this year’s competitions but the GAA have elected instead to give more time to the Labour Relations Commission’s chief Executive Kieran Mulvey to broker a deal.
While everyone who enjoys Gaelic games wants to see Cork’s hurling and football stars back on the field of play asap I don’t believe for a second that the GAA would have allowed one of the country’s minnows to cause the type of fixture congestion which will result from the decision to park the issue for yet another week.
I couldn’t see headquarters being so benign to the Kilkenny footballers or the Wicklow hurlers if they were engaged in a protracted battle with their county boards and wreaking havoc on the fixture list in the process.
I hope Kieran Mulvey can bring the dispute to an end after his meetings with the panels and the county boards as no one wants to see any group of footballers or hurlers out of competitions.
However, the GAA’s decision to accommodate the Cork squads will be seen as a cave-in to the player power of the big counties and by not taking a stand it may well be a decision which will come back to haunt them in the future.