Inactive sports in need of a tonic

So that's what an apocalyptic vision of the future would hold for the sports nuts amongst us. Sporting meltdown. Faced with the prospect of being a couch potato for ever more, the temptation on Sunday was to ring Big Brother in the Department of Agriculture and ask: "Would it be okay to throw a ball around with the kids in the back garden?"

From "game on" between Wales and Ireland up until last Monday, to not even a game of local mini-rugby within the space of 48 hours. Granted, the case of foot-and-mouth in Anglesey, Wales had been confirmed on Tuesday, and the case in Armagh broke on Monday.

Even so there seem to be many inconsistencies in an ever volatile scenario. By Saturday we suddenly heard Minister for Agriculture Joe Walsh inform a slightly stunned Tom McGurk that it would require a 30-day window after the last confirmed case of foot-and-mouth disease in Britain before there could be a resumption of sport in Ireland.

Not one utterance from the Minister or the Department in all of last week prepared us for this, but if carried out to the letter a best-case scenario is that the rugby season resumes in mid to late April at the earliest, or perhaps even runs into the summer, or worst of all, is abandoned with only the outstanding Six Nations games carried over to next autumn.

It all seems a bit ad hoc and the timing and the fall-out from an Irish perspective is particularly hard. The Irish team was on a roll but now their momentum has come to a grinding halt. Whenever they resume, it will be akin to starting all over again; in effect the rustiness of Rome re-visited. And it's bound to hit the Lions hopes of some players.

At least the Six Nations should eventually be completed at some juncture. The big proviso here could be the militancy of the English club owners, who are again declaring all-out war on Twickenham and will flex their muscles if their end-of-season itinerary is disrupted.

That said, the thought of the Six Nations being run off in April or May over a few weeks may appeal to the clubs, on the basis that it sets a dangerous precedent.

The effects on the cash-strapped Irish clubs will be more heavily felt. They looked likely to benefit from the prevailing feel-good factor in the game. For the time being, the players can't even keep themselves ticking over with club games but the financial effects on the clubs will be severe. A prime example is that cited by Galwegians, who estimate that they will miss out on what would have been a hard-earned windfall of £20,000 should their home game with Constitution be postponed, or perhaps never played.

Granted, this column acknowledges that through good husbandry, rugby is better equipped to cope with a lengthy closure and is also further down the pecking order within sport's scheme of things. Horseracing will feel real hardship and loss of livelihood by comparison, and Gaelic Games too will bear a bigger brunt. As to what might happen National League football clubs, well, perish the thought.

Meantime, British sport blithely carries on regardless. Irish rugby has already been hit far harder than the country across the water where the foot-and-mouth outbreak has surely reached epidemic proportions. Again, go figure.

Sport has become an obvious sacrificial lamb, so to speak. And one can well understand why. Aside from utilising a readymade target that otherwise might later have been used as a stick with which to beat the Government, banning all sports was an effective means of hammering home the seriousness of the situation to the nation on a psychological level. A tool to underline that everybody can contribute to fortress Ireland.

Yet, aside from sport continuing in Britain, last weekend's blanket ban doesn't quite tally with, say, thousands upon thousands of students departing to all corners of the country from various third-level institutions last Friday, and then returning from whence they came yesterday morning. Nor does it tally with golf clubs remaining open last week, or the fact that more Irish sports fans will travel back and forth from Britain again next weekend than would attend an entire AIB League programme. Sport though, is an easy target. A penalty without even a goalkeeper in the way. Like taking a sledgehammer to a flea. Of course, all sports remain an irrelevance in the greater scheme of things and in a sense there can be no over-reaction to the foot-and-mouth scare, only an under-reaction. We are all touched by the farming community and are aware of the threat this crisis poses to both it and by extension the country's economy as a whole.

Sport knows its place right now and like all others rugby has dutifully complied with the mantra that everyone should "put their shoulders to the wheel". Even so it's all well and good for the Government to praise the IRFU's exemplary response and those of other sports, and make "recommendations" regarding blanket cancellations, leaving sports morally obliged to fire the bullets at their own branches and clubs.

Somewhere along the line there has to be a reciprocal gesture from the Government, perhaps permitting some localised games only, or some form of money-raising, be it pub quizzes, poker nights or whatever. If not, then the vexed issue of compensation will have to be addressed eventually. After all, spending £360 million or more on building a sporting monument to this Government in Abbotstown wouldn't quite tally with sports organisations collectively losing millions, and individuals or clubs going to the wall.

History would surely judge that the ultimate anomaly.

gthornley@irish-time.ie