There was a line doing the rounds some time ago – presumably with the stats to back it up – which maintained that Ladies Gaelic Football was the fastest growing sport in the country. In terms of participation numbers. Very understandable given the backing affixed to the sport by the likes of Lidl and TG4. And the coverage bestowed upon the sport by the latter.
From a Meath perspective, it certainly wasn’t hard to buy into the theory when one considers the meteoric elevation of class and status achieved by the Royal girls over the course of a glorious half decade under the guidance of the magnetic Eamonn Murray. Recovering from two All Ireland IFC Final defeats to not only win one but then go on to annex a pair of Brendan Martin Cup – All Ireland LSFC – triumphs at the first two times of asking.
Regrettably, however, my former tiler’s prophecy that the occasion of their retention of the Brendan Martin Cup in 2022 could in fact be the end of an era turned out to be on the money. With the team as it was then breaking up for a variety of different reasons.
However, be that as it may, Davy Nelson, those who stood in when he departed and, currently, Shane McCormack still has a very talented group of players with which to work.
If there is something to worry about, mind you, it centres on what the next phase will be like when the more experienced members of the current senior setup take their leave of the biggest stage.
Now, what I think was a Meath Minor Ladies team had a very productive campaign which included defeating Dublin while the U-20/21s (I’m not sure which it is in the Ladies game) but, with regard to the future prosperity of the senior team, it has to be a case of striking while the iron is hot to the best benefit of you and yours.
Put another way, it’s only natural that sooner rather than later, the senior team will need an infusion of new talent and how that transitional period is managed and the structures enabling doing so will be crucial to the short and long term prospects of the Ladies game in the county.
For you see – and this doesn’t apply to Meath but in fact to Ladies Football at large – their status as the fastest growing sport in the country is, I feel, under genuine threat. Possibly on two fronts, but unquestionably on one.
Soccer has to have made gains off the back of the achievements of the Ladies senior team. Firstly under the direction of the disgustingly treated Vera Pauw and indeed since Eileen Gleeson took over in her stead. Mind you, ironically, with the exception of the men’s senior side, soccer at a lot of levels in this country could be said to be on the up. Given the great strides also made by the men’s U-21 team and what I genuinely believe to be a marked improvement in the standard of football on display in the League Of Ireland. Even though it is still cast in the role of peasanty outlier when it comes to coverage afforded to it.
Where all sectors of the GAA do find their position of strength under clear and present danger is from rugby. Now, you might be thinking that’s nothing new as Ireland’s standing in the oval ball code has been rising exponentially for more than two decades. For a lot of that period, though, the notable advancement of our status in the oval ball sphere was almost exclusively manifested by the men’s senior team. The old adage about success breeding success again left its mark, mind you, and the country’s underage sides – if one can title them thus in rugby – have also announced themselves as a power on the world stage also.
A fact underscored mere days ago when the Emerging Irish team – a development squad if you will – won the first game of their current tour. Thus giving Simon Easterby or Andy Farrell or whoever a future Irish coach might be plenty of food for thought. Mind you, those with the most to ponder presently are the world order in women’s rugby following Ireland’s sensational and historic victory over New Zealand last weekend.
You can be sure their exploits will have created new heroes for sports inclined girls around the country. Just as, say, the likes of Monica McGuirk, Mary Kate Lynch, Maire O’Shaughnessy and Emma Duggan have done for hordes of young and not so young over the past few years.
You know, it doesn’t seem all that long when there was only a couple and a dog going to watch the Irish Ladies rugby team around the time Dunboyne’s Orla Brennan – cousin of the great Trevor – made the breakthrough into the side. And sometimes the dog stayed lying in front of the fire!
However, it was the hard yards, literal and metaphorical, put in by those trailblazers dug out the path to the mountain top which last weekend’s momentous achievement represents.
Ironically, just when I had found a means of arriving at peace with GAA’s split season, the rugby ladies’ groundbreaking brilliance exposed it once again in all its gawdy ugliness. With, at club level, Ladies Football getting the same greyhound and hare treatment as do the men’s competitions, it leaves other sports an awful lot of time in which to woo targets with proposed daliances.
There are none so blind as those who do not wish to see.
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