It is said that fair play is good sport. So doesn’t it stand to reason that unfair play makes for bad sport?
But where does reality stop and unfairness begin? With the exception of the hooter in its current form, there’s no debating that the reforms brought in by Jim Gavin’s committee have transformed football for the better.
However, what it can’t do is equip teams to have the ability or machinery to take advantage of them. A prime example – Fermanagh hit 1-24 on Saturday evening against Armagh but were still beaten by 11 points.
Right, so at this point out of fairness, it must be stated that, with Armagh being top table regulars for the better part of two decades and the men from the Erne County recently demoted to the bottom rung of the ladder there was always going to be a chasm between the sides.
However, league positioning had nothing to do with the amount of wides Declan Bonner’s team kicked or the number of times that dropped ball short into Ethan Rafferty.
Now, lest it be said this corner was having a pop at the green and white – anything but. In the past they have given Meath more headaches than a lot of teams.
They’ve always had plenty of fine footballers too. From Collie Curran, Paul and Tom Brewster, Colm McCreesh, Barry Owens to Mark, Rory and Raymie Gallagher. And even on this occasion, Garvin Jones, Josh Largo-Ellis and, in particular, the outstanding Darragh McGurn showed glimpses of what they are capable of.
The challenge though, is to turn the glimpses into a show reel. Meath were there about a decade ago. It’s a process. Which takes investment. Of personnel, structure, time and, yes, money. To use our own case as the best study, it’s only when you get your coaching and competition structures in order at local level that you will see the fruits thereof.
Even Dublin, at sometime in the early 2000s you suspect realised that they had to up their game at underage level with the county’s senior footballers only having annexed one All Ireland SFC since 1983.
At greatest expense to the Royal County we know exactly how that turned out. Looking through the lens of hindsight, mind you, though the shift in mindset took longer to take hold than should have been the case, Dublin’s domination was the boot in the backside the Brains Trust in these parts needed to get their house in order.
And, to give credit where it’s due, doing so has begun to yield fruit. In the guise of an All Ireland MFC, two Leinsters there and one in the final underage grade. All of which played their part in the recent capture of elevation back to Div. 1 of the NFL.
Granted, the recent exit from the Leinster SFC certainly wouldn’t have been in the script, though nor should it be defining of this team or their season.
As if it were needed, the results of the weekend proved that, across all the GAA codes, things looking a certain way on paper or indeed to the naked eye often isn’t worth sh*t. How else to explain Roscommon hammering Mayo or Down dethroning Donegal up north or Westmeath ousting our lads or Waterford coming back from being as errant in their shooting as the latest lad to try to take out Trump to nab a deserved draw and leave Tipp arses dangling over the rasher maker.
There are good footballers and hurlers in every county in the land and a few places overseas. You only need to look at the likes of Leitrim footballers like Barry McNulty, Tom Prior and the O’Rourke brothers (the modern incarnation thereof) or, say, Waterford hurlers such as Mark Fitzgerald, Sean Mackey, Sean Walsh or even other youngsters like Mark Hartley and Cormac Spain who haven’t been fully blooded yet and it’s easy to envision a team being built around them.
What’s more, akin to the Meath footballers with lads such as Ciaran Caulfield, Ruairi Kinsella, Eoghan Frayne, Mat Costello and Sean Coffey, these lads bring a winning culture with them from underage teams. A rising tide does indeed lift all boats.
Therein lies the challenge for the Fermanaghs and Leitrims and Waterfords – to build around the brilliant players from their counties listed above and progress will, if the right structures and processes are in place, naturally follow.
No, we are not talking about Liam Mac Carthy or Sam Maguire or Tailteann – whichever is relevant trophy – turning up in any of these places anytime soon, but perhaps the most important thing to remember when judging the progress of any team is that all progress is relative.
Allow me to explain. For instance, at present in Meath, being promoted to Div. 1 of the league is the manifestation of that progress. For Down, sensationally defeating Donegal is, in the words of their wholly likable manager Conor Laverty “The marquee victory they have been threatening for last few years”. Yes, they too attained National League promotion but the fact is that they were far too good a team to have ended up in Div. 3 anyway.
Hence why Kilcoo stalwart Laverty continuing “There wasn’t a word after the League Final, we just went straight into preparing for Donegal. We studied them extensively, particularly their attack”.
Now, you can be sure every team now does the same on every other. In particular, Kieran McGeeney is around long enough to know implicitly the dangers of when Down arrive on scene with a formidable team. Remember, this is a county that have only lost once when appearing in Sam Maguire Cup showpiece fixtures.
There is no suggestion for a millisecond that the men from the beautiful Mountains of Mourne are capable of reaching such peaks at this moment in time but no doubt the great Geezer and his gang will have to afford the red and black the utmost respect and attention as they will be acutely aware of what they are capable of with a bit of wind at their backs.
For those who make up the ‘unheralded’, shall we say, the mission has to be to ensure that the processes remain in place like a well oiled machine. Keeping the conveyor belt moving and churning the talented young players out. Failure to do so makes the burden too much on too few.
For example, there’s no doubt Barry McNulty is a generational talent for Leitrim. Their Declan D’Arcy of the current era. Moreover, where Declan’s brilliance was backed up by top operators like Seamus Quinn, Mickey Quinn, George Dugdale, Jason Ward, Aidan Rooney, Colm McGlynn and Liam Conlon, McNulty now his noteworthy supporting cast members in the O’Rourke brothers and Sean Harkin and Tom Prior and Paul Honeyman.
To build on the opportunities their talent affords, however, they have to have more backup. If they don’t have that, you could end up with a situation like that on Saturday last in Pairc Sean.
Whereby, as outstanding as McNulty unquestionably was against his much more highly vaunted opponents when it transpired that the towering midfielder was enduring an off day with his shooting, the burden was too great for the rest of his colleagues to deal with and Galway ended up winning with more to spare than they were perhaps value for.
As for the lovely county themselves, there’s no doubt that in Barry McNulty they have one of the most exciting and talented footballers in the country. And, though they will be fully aware one swallow never made a summer, just as the men of ’94 inspired the Minors of ’97, they will be hoping the one star swallow will attract more into the nest.
Leave a Reply