There’s an episode of The Simpsons in which Mr Burns brings the staff of the power plant to a resort up in the snow-capped mountains for a bonding weekend. As these things also tend to be in real life, the few days were dominated by tasks which had to be done, at a minimum in pairs or even larger groups.
But of course Burns had to end up paired with his nemesis, Homer, while Lenny linked up with Smithers. And of course, when an avalanche hits, trapping the lot of them up in the mountains, Burns declares he’s going to lead them all to safety. When, as one would only expect in such a scenario, he ends up in way over his head and needing rescuing himself.
Now, the following may not go to the extent of the pertinent individual needing rescuing, but they would be well advised to watch their step because they would appear to be skating on very thin ice.
I have zero intention of going into the details of matters concerning Rory Gallagher and his estranged wife Nicola. However, recent events would lead you to wonder has the Fermanagh native been blacklisted from the GAA for life.
Again, going into the nuts and bolts of that is, in one sense, best avoided, other than to wonder was the intervention by the Association President, Jarlath Burns in relation to the proposed link up between Gallagher and the Naas club in Co Kildare the wisest move he ever made?
If only from the viewpoint of comparing the Gallagher case to other matters concerning other high profile characters within the Association which have gone in a totally different direction. Yet the silence from on high in that instance has been deafening.
Look, being absolutely honest, I would be of the view that the GAA hierarchy would be better off not commenting on such situations at all. Of course there’s cognisance that the subject of Rory Gallagher’s continued and/or future involvement in GAA is a complex and multifaceted one. But, fundamentally, it can surely be safely assumed that whomever within the Naas club had proposed the addition of the former full forward to their entourage did so with the betterment of their team at heart.
That said, angst among the club’s members and supporters – presumably particularly the female Populus thereof – is wholly understandable. Thus, the proposed linkup between the individual and the serial Kildare (dual) county champions would have to be deemed untenable. However, the latest twist in what has now become a saga raises more questions than it in fact answers. Some of which are as follows:
(a) Did Mr Burns contact the club of his own volition?
(b) Does the said intervention mean Mr Gallagher is effectively banned from being involved with teams?
(c) How could such a position tally with the fact that he was involved with the Corduff club in Monaghan last season and seemingly intends being once more?
(d) Did Corduff receive similar communication to Naas?
(e) If not, why not? What’s the difference between the two?
(f) Why the difference in stance from the hierarchy between the Naas case and some of the other cases hinted at above?
As the oracle of all things Kildare GAA, Richard Commins, observed when the news of the Naas u-turn broke, the hierarchy undoubtedly engaged in threading thin ice when an t-Uachtarain made his intervention in the Naas case. If only because it, optically at least, puts it on a different plateau to the other ‘bad news’ stories. Optics are important. Is it not effectively saying managers are at a different level to players therefore accordingly will be treated in a manner to reflect that different status?
Of course, the ‘different plateau’ can only mean one thing – professionalism. If that is the case, in one way it’s to be welcomed that there’s finally acknowledgement that the commitment managers give is professlonal in all but name.
But, again, such an assertion would raise questions of its own:
(h) Why are players not afforded commensurate status (after all they are the most important ones in the GAA) and when will they be?
(i) If it’s a thing that a case involving a team manager is being treated as a professional matter, are the GAA not leaving themselves open to shots across their bows from any number of angles.
Eventually, you’d have thought the ‘Gallagher question’ will to be answered one way or the other, but gut feeling is that this story has a number of chapters to come yet.
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