TIPPING POINT:Talent and wit in Gaelic games are being sacrificed in favour of sweaty foostering and the requirement to run, run and then run a bit more, writes BRIAN O'CONNOR
FADÓ, FADÓ, back in the mists of time when footballers gorged on pre-match meals of steak and chips, with cans of Coke to wash it all down, there was a saying that it would be substitutes on the under-14 club team who would go on to play senior – the assumption being that many of the kids with actual talent would be turned off before reaching adulthood, leaving those uncoordinated, resentful subs of yore to persevere in playing. It’s hard not to look at the modern boiled chicken and pasta fanaticism of top-class intercounty stuff and wonder if the same thing that used to happen at the grassroots isn’t happening at elite level now.
Even a cursory perusal of the big Croke Park games this summer has revealed remarkable levels of fitness but also some staggering displays of ineptitude. There are high-profile players with considerable reputations and awards trailing behind him who you wouldn’t bet on to reliably kick a ball through the London Eye from 10 yards away. It has been ridiculous sometimes, passes that Ray Charles could have seen veering off in the opposite direction to their intended target, shots at goal that have had linesmen ducking and ball-handling that would have Wags laughing scornfully. But boy, can they run.
Get these guys running and it’s like watching Thomson’s Gazelles pirouetting over the horizon. Unfortunately there’s probably more chance of the Tommies doing something with the ball other than hand-pass it.
This isn’t some “in my day” rant. Every decent team needs a mixture of abilities, some more cerebral than others. How else to explain Mike Sheehy and Jimmy Deenihan playing for Kerry at the same time? No doubt both reckoned they were being flogged within an inch of their lives during the 1970s when Mick O’Dwyer had them belting from one end of the Fitzgerald Stadium wire to the other. But compared to the dedication required for intercounty competition now, what Sheehy co were doing was a comparative stroll.
It is eye-watering the amount of work needed to make even the most undistinguished of county teams these days, something the GAA has tried to address by introducing a winter break that everyone knew would be flouted from the off.
The result has been even more intense masochism, players flogging themselves on the altar of self-sacrifice, anointing their aching limbs in barrels of ice, flogging their tired carcasses once more around the pitch, examining those oh-so-bulgy biceps in the gym mirror for another hour, at 6am, on Christmas morning, going that extra yard, earning it. All of which is very commendable in its very Protestant way. In fact it is a pre-requisite now, producing much aggrandizing prose about the will to win, desire and how flagellation is a reflection of the soul within, blah, blah, blah.
However anyone who thinks the standard of some of the stuff that eventually is played out at Croker during the summer isn’t linked to this fanatical emphasis on athleticism for the rest of the year is deluding themselves. More than ever talent and wit is being sacrificed in favour of sweaty foostering and the requirement to run, run and then run a bit more.
Sure there are still players of skill that can get bums on seats, Cooper, both Brogans, that geezer Joyce in Galway. But ask yourself this: if you were a talented young fella today, just out of the minor ranks, in thrall to the game but not compulsively so, prepared to devote plenty, but not so much that the best 10 years of your life are full of running, lifting, resting and damn all else – in short a regular, sensible youngster looking forward to getting drunk, laid and maybe eventually a bit wiser. Would you go down the monastic senior intercounty route?
Sure those that do are to be admired in many ways. The sacrifices required are immense and they themselves never tire of pointing out how they are professional in all but name. The contrast in selflessness compared to Premier League players for instance is constantly made, the various prides of the parish doing it all for nothing more than the jersey. It’s the glory of the GAA and all that. But is it any wonder that more and more youngsters are looking at the deal and concluding it just isn’t worth the wick?
Because glorious as it might all be, and in love with the game as the players are, only a certain type of person looks at devoting everything – and I mean everything – to something for which the only reward is often pain, abuse and disillusionment.
The easy response is to say if someone isn’t prepared to put in the effort, then “good luck”. But that’s too flip. Someone in GAA HQ has to be thinking about how much talent is being lost because this most stringently amateur of institutions is demanding more and more professionalism just to be able to compete, never mind win. And they have to think about it because what ultimately propels future generations of players isn’t the ability to dutifully run hard but a twist of wit and skill that makes a kid turn around and ask “did you see that?”
To those of a certain generation the name Seánie O’Leary will mean little or nothing. He was a Cork hurler of a quarter century ago, a corner forward with the touch of a Rubenstein and the belly of a Roseanne Barr. Seánie was a corner forward because any other position would have required sustained bursts of activity incompatible with the bulk underneath his chin. But there was more hurling in the tips of his fingers than many of today’s toned svelte heroes will have in their entire bodies. Today he would barely be allowed in the stadium, never mind the team.
Seánie is best known now for his son Tomás, the Irish rugby scrumhalf. No mean hurler in his time, Tomás has the sort of washboard stomach you could probably play bluegrass music on. But Tomás is paid to have it. When he finishes training he goes home to lie down. When the modern GAA star finishes training he goes to work. How sustainable is that? Admirable and all the sacrifices might be, but with demands increasing all the time, is it any wonder some youngsters are concluding only mugs work that hard for nothing. Cue coaches turning around and examining that bench.
Maybe the solution is to regress. There are few more effective ways of stopping you running than having to masticate a wedge of bullock and a few pounds of potato. So, what say you all, before each and every training session from now on – steak and chips all round!
