Throughout the past week, a sports story emerged which only became one due to an embarrassing dearth of leadership from whence it should have been emerging. Now, I have no bother admitting that that I know very little about the Israel/Palastine/Gaza conflict. Other than that it has been going on as long as I’ve been rolling around this big old ball. Probably well before that too.
But, unless you’ve taken on the guise of an ostrich, it’s been very obvious that the injuries and deaths in the region seem to have spiralled to heartbreaking levels in the recent past.
Yet, it would appear that saving face is more important for those in the upper echelons of Basketball Ireland than doing the right thing.
“It (refusing to fulfil last week’s European Women’s Qualifier against Israel) would’ve only been a token gesture and wouldn’t have made a blind bit of difference”.
The above quote was the asinine official response from BBI head honcho John Feehan, who, amazingly, is still in his position at the time of typing. Evidently, there are people in positions of leadership who couldn’t be guaranteed to find their way out of a paper bag. Never mind to direct anybody else.
Undoubtedly the most pungent stink to emanate from the whole sorry mess was the compatability to the farcical cop out attempted in the wake of the Leinster SFC Final of 2010 by the Leinster Council and higher up the GAA food chain who attempted to put the onus on Meath to offer Louth a replay.
It was a disgrace then and the position the Irish ladies found themselves in during the build up to Israeli game was an even bigger outrage whether caused by BBI are FIBA.
If you want to talk about proper leadership, you’d go a long way to see better exhibits of that quality than in the two National Hurling League matches shown on TG4 on Saturday evening.
In the first half, thanks to Cillian Kiely, Jason Sampson, Charlie Mitchell and Brian Duignan hurling with abandon, visitors Offaly opened up a considerable cushion for themselves.
Only for, for the umpteenth time and then some, well travelled warriors like Mark Fanning, Damien Reck, Lee Chin and Kevin Foley to rouse relative newcomers like Cian Byrne, Corey Byrne-Dunbar and Seamus Casey to haul them back for a pulsating draw.
From there, it was onto Pairc Ui Chaoimh, where the latest battle between Cork Kilkenny was true to the form of many of the famed clashes between the age old rivals. Perhaps the only factor that was noticeably different was the ease with which Derek Lyng’s side opened a considerable lead for themselves thanks to Adrian Mullen, Eoin Cody and Cian Kenny were launching long range missiles with laser guided accuracy.
At that precise moment, you imagined Pat Ryan going full on Any Given Sunday. “We’re in hell right now gentlemen, and, we can stay here, get the sh** kicked out of us, or, we can fight our back into the light”, except, before he even had the opportunity to go full on Al Paccino, some of his on-field lieutenants set about taking a Hannibal Smith view of the matter and, as the burgeoning Tommy O’Connell and Pat Horgan and the ever-industrious Conor Lehane went from 0 to 60 in jig time, it meant that, with the aid of a Conor O’Callaghan goal, somehow, the locals only trailed by three – 1-07 to 0-13 – when referee Johnny McDonnell called for the ball for the first time.
The Rebels continued to hold the upper hand in most aspects of the game, bar the way that matters most – the scoreboard. They did eventually hit the front there too, but, unsurprisingly, at that point, the leaders of the Cat Pack stood up and drove them out the gap again.
The point being that even though the people on the pitch may change, the ethos doesn’t or the processes don’t. Thus, the introduced Walter Walsh and Kevin Blanchfield and, in particular, Billy Drennan, stepped up to the plate and led the way to a destrved victory.
They could also have careers dolling out lessons in leadership which certain folk very definitely need.
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