Football in much need of a revolution

Yesterday was a day which Gaelic football has needed for some time. Laois and Sligo almost sucker punched two of the big franchises out of the competition. Whatever the personal grief of those of us with connections to the ailing big guns, it would have been no bad thing for the game had they succeeded.

Football needs revolution. Lots of it. Last week Tom Cribbin had a little cut off the Dublin team. Big ignorant hoors that want watching. That's not what he said precisely but it was what passed into our earholes.

Tom Carr had a little cut back. My hoors are no bigger or more ignorant than Tom Cribbin. Nobody should pay any attention especially the referee.

And on Saturday on the radio Tom Cribbin returned a little sniper fire. He was surprised at Tom Carr taking on so. Strewth! Imagine anyone thinking that he Tom Cribbin, a manager still in his infancy, would be so impertinent as to attempt to influence a referee. All he Tom Cribbin had being doing was remarking on what fine specimens the Dublin players were.

And surprise, surprise the world is still turning this morning. We are not entering into 40 days and 40 nights of heavy rain. The tongues of Messrs Carr and Cribbin haven't withered and fallen off onto the floor.

There will be those fundamentalists who will figure that little spats such as that which occurred between the two Toms last week are unseemly and have no place in the modern game.

This of course is nonsense on stilts. Gaelic football in particular needs spats. Lots of spats. Little spats. Big spats. The mother of all spats. It needs controversy, talking points, rivalries, big games and sexy teams who will talk, even swagger their way through seasons.

Gaelic football is going through a fallow period. There were 28,371 in Croke Park yesterday which isn't a very impressive figure given the participants and the possibilities the game threw up.

More and more the personalities and glamorous fixtures which mark the GAA seasons have belonged to hurling. The big hurling games of the summer are the matches which people talk about in saloon bars and club houses. The best controversies of the past few seasons have belonged to hurling.

Ger Loughnane has fallen sadly silent this summer but last year's glorious flight across the front and back pages did hurling in general no harm at all. Hurling (there are exceptions) is generally filled with good talkers and big characters these days.

Football needs a little of the same. We've had too many teams creeping out back doors (Mayo) or taking collective vows of silence (Kerry) or counties (Galway) where 3,500 people are suddenly struck by collective blindness when an ALLEGEDLY unsavoury incident involves a star player or just caviling about their treatment in the media (take your pick).

At this time in the GAA's development there is no room for diffidence and deviousness. If players are to be expected to come to Croke Park and perform highly skilled athletic feats in front of 60,000 people, they should be allowed conduct an adult conversation with a journalist and communicate something about themselves to those 60,000 people.

So it was refreshing to see Tom Carr and Tom Cribbin duelling on the back pages last week. The game needed it.

Dublin have three weeks to put things right after yesterday's extraordinarily inept display. All that saved them from ignominy was the fact that for the last few minutes some involuntary reflex in the Laois team's brain caused them to flinch in anticipation of Dublin slapping them down.

It's a fascinating conundrum. Dublin have big problems. Brian Stynes had his worst championship outing in some time yesterday but it was still a surprise to see the team deprive itself of his influence. Then Paul Curran went off with his collarbone broken.

Dublin had 20 minutes left to play and were rudderless. Somehow they survived bungling through.

Watching Dublin through the winter it has been hard to discern a pattern to where the team is going. Yet for the first 20 minutes yesterday nobody could argue but that Tom Carr and his colleagues had got it spot on.

Shane Ryan had long spells at full back and corner back then after an apparently successful spin in the half backs against Louth was being decried as too loose. Paul Croft was brought back, days after finishing a long suspension. Paul Curran was moved inside to the pivot of the half back line where he has seldom impressed.

Ian Robertson at centre back looked to have found a position which suited his extraordinary range of skills. He came into the championship at full forward though having suffered a groin injury. Surprise, surprise he saved Dublin's bacon yesterday and if his arrival in the full forward hole owed more to accident than design, he should be left there.

The number 15 jersey on the Dublin team is an eternal mystery. On judgement day great and widespread will be the rejoicing if the multitudes who have suffered in that garment are spared purgatorial sentences. This year Messrs, Cosgrove, O'Keeffe, O'Donoghue, and O'Brien have all had little test drives. Yesterday Dublin ended up with Jason Sherlock in there and most people would view that as the sensible option.

Leaving Sherlock and Robertson inside with space to play with and letting Dessie Farrell go foraging further afield seems like the best bet available right now.

As for Laois they have so much going for them that it was hard to sympathise with their long faces after yesterday's draw. They picked themselves up off the ground after Dublin seemingly declared their total having scored six points without reply in the opening 20 minutes.

For a team to do as Laois did yesterday and replace an entire half forward line speaks volumes for the depth of their panel and the asperity of their young manager.

Tom Cribbin stopped in the tunnel under the new stand yesterday maybe an hour after the game had ended. He chatted with a couple of journalists. Intelligent, upbeat and articulate just as Tom Carr had been moments earlier.

"What's the best place to get in touch with you in the next week or two," he was asked. And without hesitation he called out his mobile phone number and headed into the bowels of the ground.

Replay in three weeks time. Let the hype flow free and unfettered. Football on the verge of a new era? Let's hope so.