BOYLAN TALKS SPORT: Seeking winter comforts
There are none so blind as those who do not wish to see.
That the GPA wouldn’t be top of my Christmas card list is hardly newsflash material, but at this stage I’ve given up trying to decipher what their game is.
If, as they continually attest, they are adamant on the amateur status of players, they hardly need a ‘union’. Or, to turn that on its head, if they do consider themselves a representative body - with a paid CEO - it’s hardly very amateur, is it?
It would not be difficult to conclude those therein would have you believe their leavings are odour free. Though their policy positions are not half as idiotic as what spawned from them - the Club Players Association (CPA).
To much fanfare, they were the dung agitators who promulgated the inception of what may as well now be known as the so-called split season. It’s hard to exactly know how or where it's split.
What we will term ‘even average’ club teams, if their current campaigns have concluded, in a few short weeks - at most - the cycle will begin again in preparation for the 2025 campaign.
Do I think that should be the case? Absolutely not, but as long as what I call the FOMO sheep mentality holds sway, it will remain as such.
Allow me to explain.
There is absolutely a culture in the GAA whereby, if a winning team implements a particular tactic and is successful with it, for fear of missing out and thus being left behind, the masses will dutifully follow like sheep going out a gate
For example, whether that be Mickey Harte or Jim McGuinness’s blanket defences, the former Derry manager whose name nobody mentions and his introduction of the ‘fly’ goalkeeper concept to Gaelic football or Davy Fitzgerald’s introduction of the sweeper system to hurling.
Even though if you look at Dublin and Armagh in football or Limerick in the recent past with regard to hurling, the simple methodology is quite often the best.
Anyway, all of the above pertained to club sides whose seasons had concluded, but, taking it that all 32 county championships (x2) have now concluded, that means there are at least 64 club sides - not counting winners at Intermediate and Junior level, Camogie and Ladies Football - facing into provincial championship campaigns they will hope to stretch out to Christmas at least.
What do they get out of the so-called split season? If the GPA/CPA are insistent on banging the player burnout drum, would they not be better served seeking the abolition or at least re-constitution of Sigerson/Fitzgibbon Cup rigmaroles and/or the currently uncompetitive and frankly boring provincial championships.
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Don’t get me wrong, I would love nothing more than to have one of my club’s teams on a wintry expedition. We should have at least one. That such is not the case prompts a cocktail of anger, upset and frustration. Others don’t eat any better spuds than we do.
However, it is what it is and so one has to look elsewhere for winter comforts. To be fair, between RTE, TG4 and Clubber, an avalanche of broadcast matches fills a large chunk of the void.
That said, watching wintry club action tends to be a jagged double edged sword when your own aren’t on similar journeys.
To those of us with lifelong GAA addiction, it’s of incalculable value to be able to get a ‘fix’ wherever it might come from. The flip side to that coin, though, is the longing for your own to be at similar levels.
Especially when you consider the recent achievements of clubs like Carnaross, Dunsany and Meath Hill. Not to mention those, in other counties, like Naas and Ballygunnar and Kilcoo and Loughmore/Castleiney and Corofin who not only put a string of county titles together but go further. Or from another angle, seeing clubs upset the odds and topple the mighty.
As has been seen quite a bit very recently. With both All Ireland Club SFC (Watty Grahams Glen) and SHC (St Thomas’s) domestically deposed by Newbridge and Cappataggle respectively. Not to mention Ballymacarbry in Waterford (Ladies), Na Piarsaigh in Limerick, Sarsfields of Cork, both Ballyhale Shamrocks and O’Loughlin Gaels eliminated in Kilkenny, Kilmacud Crokes (Dublin) and Crossmaglen Rangers in Armagh.
Now, as much as there is angst owing to Dunboyne not being at that level, there is, mind you, fervent hope that Dunshaughlin, Meath Hill, Dunsany, Ratoath Navan O’Mahonys and Na Fianna (Camogie) or at least some thereof will be able to shave a few weeks off the winter yet.
Aside from that, though, many of you will know that National Hunt racing will be a large percentage of my strategy for circumnavigating the wintry months.
Yes, I have ventured into small stake racehorse ownership via Owners Group Racing in the UK, but the ambition always has been, and remains, to have a steed closer to home. In Castletown with Noel Meade.
Given the way the wheels of the racing world have turned in more recent times though, I had more or less accepted that if a representative were to be housed in Tu Va, it would most likely have to be one for the flat. Not that such would’ve been an absolute deal breaker anyway.
Perhaps that wouldn’t come into it though. For it was very much a case of being like old times for the affable multiple times champion trainer as he recorded a treble on the first day of Galway’s Bank Holiday fixture. Doing it in the classic way too, winning a maiden hurdle (Messerschmit), novice chase (Sportinthepark) and the concluding bumper (Colcannon).