It was learnt a long time ago that communication via text message or WhatsApp or email or online forums can be tricky business. Leave aside issues like predictive text or space contraints, from personal experience, the biggest drawback to communication in such ways is an inability to display or convey context or emotion to your remarks.
Example, today yours truly was met with some rather ill-informed and poorly judged remarks when my genuine despair at counties being up in arms about proposals to push the All Ireland finals back to August was articulated.
Why? Because I think, far from helping clubs, the split season is to their detriment because all it does is encourage players to hop on airplanes, at the very least for months at a time. Right in the midst of what is supposed to be the height of club time in the GAA calendar. Before the split season, that simply didn’t happen to the same extent.
The other thing that ticked me off and prompted me to engage with the post on the Hurling Chat page on Facebook was the kick in the guts was the announcement that yet another Meath player – this time Mary Kate Lynch – has been pilfered to try her hand at AFLW. In her case with the Sydney Swans.
Now, I’ll be honest, in my heart, I do wonder are players incapable of saying no? Some have done it – Shane O’Rourke, Ciaran Kilkenny, David Clifford and Emma Duggan – to name but a few. The majority reach for the passport though. It just seems very unfair that, for example, the Meath Ladies are down five players – all of them former All Stars – at the same time.
Let me be very clear: I do not in the slightest begrudge players the opportunity to experience a professional environment. If anything, greatest feelings are of envy. Even taking the fact that yours truly is a wheelchair user out of the equation, what Eamon Armstrong, Vikki and Sarah Wall, Orlagh Lally, Aoibhin Cleary and now Mary Kate will experience would equate to me getting a full time job in a national paper.
So I couldn’t possibly be angry, more down because of the loss the players will be to their club and county teams. Most obviously the Wall sisters from my own club.
That, and the fact that nobody seems willing to even explore the possibility of offering GAA players a professional environment here at home. All you get are the same tired old lines that it “wouldn’t be feesible”. Have case studies or calculations or hypothetical scenarios been tested?
It’s like the other one the needle gets stuck on – the “no ref/no game” one. Out of pure curiosity, I’d love to know was that ever tested! Apart, that is, from Brian Cody’s legendary internal matches. Where he blew the whistle to start the matches – each ‘keeper starting a half with a puc out – and again to close matters but for the minutes in between it was every man for himself and survival of the fittest. Policy didn’t serve them too badly either!
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For all that it is beyond obvious that inter county players need and deserve to be looked after in a more effective and material way, clubs do not do themselves any favours at times in how they manage players.
Particularly at underage level. Allow me to explain. We’ve all encountered the unfortunate situation of the underage team that has that many players togged out that it is an unavoidable inevitability that there will always be kids left on the line. Which is the exact circumstance in which doing what’s best for a player may take a different route.
The only wonder about the current TV advert with the tagline Stop The Drop is that it took until now to come up with it. So, how does one stop the dropout of young players from Gaelic games in the early teenage years?
Well, unfortunately, Fergus Gibson is not on hand with his crystal ball, but, to my mind, there are a couple of fairly obvious starting points.
Clubs can either (a) field more teams – although further down the line does that run the risk of the scenario which could quite easily play out in Waterford hurling this year where you could end up with Ballygunner against Ballygunner B. Hardly ideal.
Alternative solution (b) would be fairer, much more practical and doesn’t leave the potential for a hangover of acrimony but I fear clubs would have too much of a stiff upper lip to entertain it.
That is to say, for clubs to have a more open minded and fairer view regarding the issue of players seeking transfers. Too often, clubs see it as an affront to their very being if a player wants to try alternative accommodation.
Then there are the type who try to talk out of both sides of their mouth on the issue. I wouldn’t have to go too far to locate example of the latter. In one instance, the party line was that club policy was not to sign transfers. End of.
Even though in one instance, a little bit of cop on regarding the issue would have resulted in the acquisition of two county players for the club in question. On such things are championships won and lost, literally.
What’s twice as maddening is the fact that the not signing transfers policy went out the window when it came to letting a county footballer and hurler leave the club.
Another thing that makes my plugs spark is the following – the ease with which Dublin clubs seem to be able to sign county lads from around the country. For example, Galway’s Shane Walsh to Kilmacud Crokes; his team mate Cein D’Arcy to Ballyboden St Enda’s; Limerick hurler Bryan Ryan to Na Fianna and his Tipperary counterpart Ryan O’Dwyer to Crokes.
Now contrast that to my own club who, over the years, have been linked to: Cormac Murphy, Anthony Moyles, Dermot McCabe, Adam Flanagan, Ciaran McDonald, Raymie and Rory Gallagher and former Dublin hurler Mick Carton. Out of which the grand total of ZERO became reality.
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Moving on, by my own admission, ended up down a bit of a rabbit hole there. The reason for production of what you are reading could probably be best described as a pizza comprised of everything in this piece up to this point.
Basically, a young player seeking a transfer and those from whom the player wished to depart doing everything in their power to stop the move and eventually succeeding. Leaving the young player caught between two stools.
However, the above would barely synopsise the matter at hand. Even to mention the fact that transfer would be from one side of a particular parish adds another layer of complexity here.
Yet it still doesn’t go near the nuts and bolts of the topic. Consider, if you will, that the youngster involved is thought to be good enough for the county Development Squad in his age grade. Finally, and if the following wasn’t the clincher for the applicant I don’t know what would be – the lad’s older sister is already playing with the club to which her younger brother wants to relocate.
The poor young lad’s mother is flummoxed by the whole thing, not least the effect it may have on the teenager. Having been around GAA administration for 30 years, this corner had delivered a few pointers as to what to expect with the appeal hearing.
However, what nobody can legislate for is the ignorance of some people when they get a bit of power into their hands. And, just as one of the most revered figures in Meath GAA was shafted at the behest of the same individual, the transfer applicant here was given short shrift. Even though one of his team mates seeking the same move to the same alternate entity had his request granted. Go figure.
Even looking from the outside in, though, what’s most disconcerting about the way these things are handled, or mishandled, depending on your perspective, is the manner in which the player at the centre of the the wrangle essentially gets caught between two stools.
On one hand, they are obviously not at their happiest at their current location or they wouldn’t be engaging in agitation for a relocation. But now, having had the the request refused, put yourself in the player’s boots. How do you feel about returning to your current team?
Knowing that (a) in your heart you want away from them and (b) your current mentors and possibly even team mates will be fully cognisant of the fact that you wanted away from their midst. There are numerous ways in which people can work to stop the drop, and dealing with transfers in a fair and transparent fashion would be a very good place to start.
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