Emmet Moloney writes for the 'The Irish Farmers Journal' and is a former sports columnist with 'The Kerryman'.
While borrowing good ideas from other sports has worked well for the GAA, it’s important the undesirable aspects are left where they are. Emmet Moloney has a rant...
There’s nothing wrong with borrowing good ideas from other sports. The GAA has taken yellow cards from soccer in recent years and it has worked well. Ladies football has taken the basketball/US football countdown clock and that has worked exceptionally well. There are still a few wonderful innovations crying out to be introduced into Gaelic Games. Many of them could come from rugby. I am thinking specifically about the sin bin and the advantage rule. I’d also be in favour of having a mic on the referee. But one thing I don’t want to see invading our GAA coverage is the language of other sports. Bear with me here. It’s January. There’s not a lot happening. This is the time for such musings.
This use/misuse of language is a bugbear of mine. I listen to RTÉ, Newstalk and local radio and I watch plenty of sport on television. Most of the sports news these days contains Mickey Mouse non-news from soccer.
How many times do I have to hear that Alex Ferguson is warning his players not to underestimate such and such a team, some player who is contracted to a club until 2013 has signed an extension to 2016, some player has said he wants to end his career at the club that happen to be paying his wages. Asinine stuff. And there’s a long list.
Most of the fault here lies with the “meedja”. And the tabloid media in particular. These lads have to fill pages about soccer when there is nothing happening. So they turn a nothing story into a big headline. There is no substance to it.
It is creeping into our GAA coverage too. And because we have so much media in Ireland right now, there is air time to be filled. GAA correspondents are now charged with reporting on Gaelic games on a full-time, year-round basis. In the old days, come September, the GAA journalist packed away his GAA cap and spent his winter at race meetings, rugby matches and soccer games. There was little or no mention of the GAA. That was when the “closed season” really did exist.
I heard a sports news report the other night announcing a team selection for the O’Byrne Cup. The big news was that such and such a player will be starting on the bench. Starting on the bench? How do you do that exactly?
This is a new one that has found its way into soccer and rugby vernacular. Now we are getting it in the GAA. What does it mean? It means the player is a sub. You don’t start anything on the bench. You sit. He’s a sub. That’s it. He is starting nothing.
We have our own home-grown phrases within the GAA. Good ones too. Bury it. Clash ball. Wide ball. Take it yourself, ref. He’d catch it in his mouth. Fair shoulder. Square ball. Pull on it. Let it go. Put it up. Lob it in around the house. Where’s the field? Offaly are never beaten. Cork are never happy.
Sheep in a heap. Schmozzle. One of my favourites dates from my U-14 training days. The manager, Mike Mac (not that Mike Mac), would arrive in the middle of the pitch, look around, count and say: “How many have we? 13? Right so, lads, seven a side!” I think we should protect that heritage a little bit more. These are our games and no-one else’s. I love rugby and I do watch the odd soccer match, but hurling and football are in our blood. Change is good and evolution is a natural thing, but laziness is something else entirely.
Today’s GAA manager is the perfect case in point. He is really up against it now. Thanks to soccer and the demands that come with it, a manager is now supposed to be infallible if he is to survive in his role. He is the subject of horrendous abuse from yobs who believe that in buying a ticket to a match, they are entitled to hurl insults, curses and obnoxious remarks at anyone they choose. And this ridiculous argument is making its way into the GAA environment. I have heard people state that, as they paid their €30 or €40 into Croke Park, they are now cleared to shout abuse at their own and opposing players, officials and management. Does this entrance fee really entitle them to behave like this? Not for me.
Think that’s just soccer, not GAA? Remember Tommy Lyons getting spat at when the Dubs lost a championship game a few short years ago? A spectator also ran onto the sideline and hit then Kerry manager Páidí Ó Sé a belt the same summer. Where is this coming from?
I am not anti-English, far from it. I lived in London for years and enjoyed it immensely. But I am anti-yob culture and soccer positively nurtures this. Watch the crowd reaction to a goal in the English Premier League. The supporters of the team that scored it jump up and down, some will immediately antagonise their opposing fans. The team that concedes the goal will have hundreds of their supporters effing and blinding their goalie, defence, manager, referee, etc. It is frightening to see the level of aggression in those faces.
That all started with the language of the game. In soccer, someone has to be blamed when a goal is conceded. Poor defending, etc. We’re going that way too.
I’ve yet, in 35 years of attending matches, to see a scoreless draw in hurling or football. When a ball is hit into a forward line 30 or 40 times a game, eventually it will break to someone who can put it over the bar. A forward might catch a ball ahead of his marker. This will happen a number of times. Nowadays, some fans are throwing their heads in their hands when a score is conceded. One score. Are they expecting no score at all to be conceded? This is the blame game at work. It has to be someone’s fault, that is how we are programmed to think nowadays.
Christy Ring, great as he was, didn’t play a perfect game every time he went on the field. He was trying but he was human, too. No-one can win every single ball, every single time. We’d have a very boring game if they did. But today it is nearly expected. And when the player doesn’t win that ball the bar stool merchants are muttering. Some are shouting. And one or two are spitting at Tommy Lyons as he leaves the pitch.
We need to keep an eye on this and make sure our games don’t go changing too much.
Wouldn’t that be something? Leinster and Munster in a Heineken Cup final in Stade de France. An official end to the recession!
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