More important issues remain on agenda

Seán Moran On Gaelic Games:Eventful times for the GAA. By Saturday night the show will be over and the wonder of other sports at Croke Park should be well on the way to abating even before the first soccer international is staged on Jones's Road. In the meantime the visit of the England rugby team has proved more awkward than expected.

A fair bit of Bloody Sunday talk was always likely and no harm in that, as the imminent occasion has shone a brighter light on a vital piece of history than any number of anniversaries. But who could have anticipated such contrived agonising over notional wreath-laying or that the words of God Save the Queen would only dawn on some people nearly two years after it became clear that the British anthem would be played in Croke Park?

One thing that anyone has to marvel at is the adaptability of the GAA and how it has evolved through the decades. The Parnellite split, the Civil War, the 1930s IRA campaign, The Troubles and hunger strikes are just some of the testing times through which the association has had to find a way. So it's safe to say that the current ripples won't be causing too many sleepless hours.

There are, after all, a whole range of conflicts to be resolved as the GAA moves within two years of its 125th anniversary. Saturday represents one of them.

For most of its history the association has discharged its cultural remit through gestures and prohibitions, generally losing sight of the fact that the preservation and promotion of the indigenous games was the greatest cultural contribution of all.

Croke Park stands as a monument to those games and the awkwardness surrounding the lease of the stadium to other sports is understandable on the conservative level that change may bring with it unwelcome side-effects.

The experience of reforms within the GAA - expanded intercounty championships and live television coverage to name just two from the last decade - has prompted concerns for the wellbeing of club activities but would anyone go back to the way things were? Managing the change from isolationism to accommodation hasn't been easy and has exposed divisions albeit not serious ones.

There are, however, more potentially serious fault-lines on the landscape than the currently limited access to Croke Park granted to the IRFU and FAI. Last Saturday Central Council gave the go-ahead for that access to continue next year. Among the other items it dealt with was last week's Tyrone flash fire on the subject of the Gaelic Players Association.

The unhappiness of GAA president Nickey Brennan at the manner in which the county board launched its attack on the talks about recognition between Croke Park and the players' union - despite such talks having been agreed by Central Council before Christmas - was understandable and Dessie Farrell by all accounts did an adroit job of focusing on the positive elements of the GPA-GAA interface but the tension between elite intercounty players and officialdom is a volatile influence.

Fortunately for the GAA the issue is in safe hands since the appointment last year of Páraic Duffy as Player Welfare Manager. This essentially means that any confrontation between Croke Park and players will almost certainly not be triggered by anything less than demands for pay-for-play.

It also means that there will be recognition for the special role of intercounty players. This won't be universally popular as the Tyrone open letter on the subject indicated. Another factor in this is the rising discontent among clubs, evidenced by the moves to curtail the intrusion of the intercounty season into the already anarchic club schedules.

This creates further stresses to be managed. Duffy, in one of his many trouble-shooting guises, presented to last October's special congress the report that proposed to create more space for local fixtures. But his cautionary words on over-compensating mightn't have been heard in the middle of the revivalist fervour to save the clubs. "If we further restrict the intercounty season other games will take up the media space," he said. "It's important to maintain a balance."

This is a very significant point that sometimes gets lost in the concerns - as expressed by Tyrone - about the threat to volunteerism by cosseting elites. Rugby is frequently cited as an example of what happens to clubs when professionalism is introduced. It's a questionable assertion. Lifestyle choices ate into rugby's recreational playing base in a way that hasn't happened in Gaelic games which have always prioritised serious competition over more leisurely involvement.

The quick answer is to look at Croke Park this Saturday. Even if the match were being played on the moon there would be no mistaking the excited clamour that follows rugby at the moment. Which would the IRFU prefer: the busier club schedules of a generation ago or the sort of profile the game now enjoys through a good phase at international level and the competitiveness of its teams in the European Cup? There's no disputing the remarkable commitment of GAA members in slogging away for market share among children but nothing influences kids' choices like profile: having big matches to go to and media coverage to nurture and maintain interest.

Ten years ago there were six All-Ireland matches in Croke Park featuring eight counties; last year there were more than twice that number and 13 counties (not counting Cork's dual presence) were involved. Which schedule was more likely to enhance the GAA's profile and keep the interest of the target audience? It's one of the GAA's most demanding tightrope routines. A great network of clubs and volunteers constitutes the base of the organisation and well funded, almost professional panels of players and back-up personnel provide the box office.

And contrary to what gets bandied about in discussing the difficulties created by the club-county dichotomy, neither is more important than the other. Both are vital to keeping Gaelic games on the tracks.

Managing these competing dynamics is sufficiently daunting to render pretty meaningless the hyper-prompted concerns about what the band is playing when you're away for the weekend.

Responding in the past couple of days to some variant form of the question of the week, Nickey Brennan wearily expressed the hope that the association would "move on from here. We have more than enough on our plate to concern us without spending too much time on this."

And that's the long and the short of it.

smoran@irish-times.ie