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Other faces of Ó hAilpín and Cusack: IT IS curious to note just an undercurrent of disapproval felt by upstanding supporters of the mainstream parties when GAA star Donal Óg Cusack was recently identified with Sinn Féin. If there is a scintilla of accuracy in the connection, and he has not claimed a particular closeness, Sinn Féin has made a wise move.

Cusack, through his biography with Tom Humphries, stands out as reflectively intelligent and also fearless, two traits once associated with the political class. His stance during the Cork hurlers strike was robust and unwavering as the vitriol rained down; declaring his homosexuality unprecedented. This year Cusack accepted an invitation to speak at the An Phoblacht Autumn School in Ballyvourney, Cork and appeared on a platform with Mary Lou McDonald.

A modern Nationalist, Cusack spoke about the importance of questioning what kind of society we have and asked whether the incompetence of those who destroyed an economy have the capacity to rebuild it.

Another Cork hurler, Seán Óg Ó hAilpín, would appear to be a blue-chip target and on the wish list of political parties across the spectrum. Ó hAilpín is a personality who represents an idealised image of how politicians would like to see themselves.

Last year he guested at the Radisson Hotel in Stillorgan, Dublin, where the Fijian rugby team was staying during the November international series. He arrived into the large formal gardens at the back and addressed the touring squad. The Cork hurler stood in the middle, held a hurley in one hand, a sliotar in the other and spoke for 10 minutes. The Fijian team stood transfixed.

Ó hAilpín’s physique, his common touch, passion and ability to relate the game to Rotuma, the tiny Fijian island that his mother came from, seemed entirely relevant.

He comfortably stood among them as one of them and as distinctly Irish, and he orated in a way that when those watching on the fringes turned to leave, they instinctively felt that they had witnessed something unusually nuanced and important.

The tingle, though, was Ó hAilpín’s natural charisma. Not rhinestone shirt, toothy smile or Hello Magazine glitz. It was on the barricade, authoritative, capable and unstudied. He sold the story of hurling to a group of South Sea Islanders who had never heard of him and felt as much at sea pronouncing Seán Óg Ó hAilpín as we did Vilikesa Vatuwaliwali.

There has been a history of political parties cynically plucking high-profile candidates from sport, especially GAA, and leaving the party foot soldiers on the ground, condemned to a counselling life of broken street lights and clamping complaints.

But when you read Cusack or listen to Ó hAilpín you realise how clever it is of Sinn Féin, in Cusack’s case, to court such attention, even if not reciprocated.

You also understand why individuals, who can express their views with plucky conviction, might be turned away from the political arena in the full comprehension that the light that makes them burn is likely to be the first thing to be extinguished when they rock up to the Dáil bar.

The political paradigms are changing and perhaps it took the graceless ineptitude of financiers and politicians to do it, leaving more room now than ever for principled leaders.

Just an undercurrent of reproach for Cusack – gleaned from various websites – is a good result for Sinn Féin, who could have chosen from a cast of sporting characters that gives us as many Wayne Rooneys.

But if either Corkman ever takes the leap you can bet when asked why politics, they won’t react like one former Meath footballer did when he answered, why not?

Yes, he bombed in the election.

Scary schedule for title-seeking Hughes

THAT SKELETAL, sunken-eyed figure you are hiding from, that has you hushed and silenced in your sitting room with the lights dimmed and the television almost mute, that’s an Irish jockey out there.

We know why you’re hiding. You don’t normally want to get up, open the door and tell the teenage trick or treaters you don’t, on principle, do money. It’s a sweets only house. A satsuma or small Dunnes Stores apple, maybe. But absolutely NO MONEY. On Halloween night that ghostly person lingering in your driveway is probably jockey Richard Hughes. It’s not make-up on his face. For God’s sake, bring him in.

The bold Hughes was on radio this week talking about his chances of taking the British jockeys’ championship as the flat season draws to a close. But after a six-day suspension for careless riding he found himself trailing Paul Hanagan and felt he needed to catch up. On Tuesday night, when RTÉ’s Darren Frehill asked him how he would do it, the hardy Hughes told him straight.

It would be a busy day ahead, Hughes breezily suggested. He then described how he’d be driving to Nottingham, about two and a half hours away from where he lived, and there after six rides he’d have a helicopter waiting to pick him up to “whiz down” to Kempton for eight more rides.

He’d begin at 1.30pm on Stan Moore’s Appyjack and finish at 9.10pm on David Pinder’s Woolston Ferry, riding Mick Channon’s Ayam Zainah along the way. That’s 14 rides on Wednesday. Jockeys do that.

But he also planned to hold to the same marathon race schedule on Thursday, Friday and today with one ride scheduled for tomorrow, all in the hope of reeling in the championship prize. He could fall off and concuss himself, end up in hospital, run out of luck or take it right to the tape. One way or the other a helter-skelter 14 rides a day over four consecutive days seems heroic enough to open the door on Halloween night if he comes knocking and at least give the brave wretch a handful of MMs.

Bernie’s life no longer that secret

F I N A L S T R A W:  BIG in Formula One, little Bernie turned 80 this week. Ruling the sport with an irascible and secretive iron fist has earned him more respect than love, a trait common to tycoons. In the offing from the premier of the paddock is a biography with which he is cooperating and the word is that No Angel – The Secret Life of Bernie Ecclestone might actually be interesting.

Biographer Tom Bower has some form with business characters and has demonstrated a particular gift for delving into the lives of wealthy men, irritating along the way Robert Maxwell, Fulham owner Mohamed Al Fayed, jailed newspaper baron Conrad Black, award-winning RED Hot TV owner Richard Desmond and the woolly-sweatered Richard Branson. Bower assured the notoriously ruthless Ecclestone that even, or particularly, his indiscretions would be open to print.

“Tom . . . I’m no angel,” he is reported to have replied, hence the name of the book. The publishing industry is no stranger to outrageous hype but like Al Fayed, Ecclestone is unlikely to ever hear the words “arise Sir Bernie” (to which he may answer “I have your majesty”), which gives him a compelling edge to his character and suggests it may be more than just a first chapter read, when it arrives in March.

Player problems need to be resolved

WERE there gathering clouds of discontent this week around the Rebel County and in Limerick? Declan Kidney (right), in his codified way, appeared to be blowing smoke signals through manager Paul McNaughton to the media over his lack of players for this weekend.

You may remember the unfortunate tally – eight injured, eight back to the provinces and 22 left to coach. Limerick University was never so lonely.

That same day a Munster audit claimed similarly “stressed” figures and postponed their A match against Leinster in Clonmel, Munster coach Anthony Foley citing player availability as the reason.

Munster had 10 contracted players injured, two suspended and 12 involved with the national squad. Because of last night’s Magners game against Ulster, it would have required players to line out twice in three days.

Perish the thought.

Those Italians are to blame for bloating the schedule, or, is it the IRFU need to make November a cash-cow month?

Kidney’s problems are because of the Magners League. The provinces’ problems are because of Ireland’s call. Please discuss and resolve fully, or, just let’s have it happen again.

Bidding process hits a new low 

THE outbreak of a football war and hastily cobbled peace accord on an Anglo-Russian front seemed hilarious enough this week given the corruption issues that have forced Fifa officials to reside in luxury hotel rooms in recent days.

Simmering tensions between the rival bids for the 2018 World Cup surfaced this week in Zurich, where the effrontery of the Russians got up Blighty’s nose. Wounded by the assertion of Russian bid chief Alexei Sorokin that the capital city has higher crime rates than the rest of Europe’s cities and the highest level of alcohol consumption among young people, England sought an apology for what they saw was a slur on London.

President of the Russian Football Union, Viacheslav Koloskov, then came in over the top and branded the England bid “absolutely primitive”. Sorokin was unmoved, had little intention of going down on bended knee and infuriatingly seemed rather broadly unrepentant, even pleased with himself.

Unlike the English, Sorokin saw that Fifa were otherwise engaged than to involve their Ethics Committee in a battle on another front when they were faced with two executives caught on camera appearing to being open to offers for their World Cup votes.

Without a “proper” apology England threatened to escalate their complaint. Holy cow! You really do have to feel for them. Wasting time on wringing an apology, when they could be out persuading countries like Russia where bribery appears to be endemic, seemed lost in England’s overriding sense of what they understand to be playing a straight bat.

The Russians realised that the English complaint was going nowhere as their slagging was timed for the week the Fifa executive was comprehensively overloaded with the serious corruption issue.

Sorokin said it was a “comical situation”. England remained “angry”. Oh dear.

Still, on Thursday, Russia introduced a third party, sports minister Vitaly Mutko, who apologised and England were pleased it was “genuine” and done in an “honourable” manner. More pointedly it illustrated that in the bidding process for most things, World Cups or Olympic Games, honour and veracity are the first things to perish.