ON The Sunday Times’ annual rich list released two weeks ago, Richard Branson was named as the richest man in London.
His net worth is £1.4billion.
Branson’s success owed a lot to his gut. He was famous for letting hunches take precedence in strategy sessions. He disliked formal business plans.
“I research new ideas very thoroughly, asking a lot of people about their experiences and their thoughts. But on many occasions, I have followed my intuition; you can't make decisions based on numbers and reports alone,” he wrote in 2010.
You wouldn’t tell everyone to follow their gut. Some people have terrible instincts.
Malachy O’Rourke is not one of those people.
The Glen manager is a man without enemies in a job where it’s so easy to make them.
His gut instincts have carried him to success for 25 years.
Everywhere he’s been as a manager, he has won.
On Sunday, in his first All-Ireland final, he lost.
Glen were beaten by Kilmacud Crokes by two points.
It was a game the Derry side should have won. After a brilliant start that saw Danny Tallon roof the net inside 34 seconds to help build a 1-3 to 0-1 lead, they fell into a more even encounter.
Glen left four goal chances behind them in the second half.
As they chased a two-point deficit in the final seconds, they had to try and score a goal against 16 men.
It was clear that there was no orchestration by the Kilmacud line of Dara Mullin’s failure to leave the pitch when Conor Casey came on.
Whether man-of-the-match Mullin was aware he was the man coming off is something only he’ll know the answer to.
If he did and stayed on, he might have thought he was being cute, but he’s left their All-Ireland title hanging by a thread.
But Malachy O’Rourke’s gut instinct in the aftermath was instructive.
Nobody in the press area of Croke Park had picked up on the incident initially. O’Rourke’s press conference was about to end when the footage of 16 Kilmacud players on the field came to light.
The former Monaghan boss said they’d been aware of it on the line and had asked the fourth official if they could have the 45 retaken, but were told no.
Asked if there was likely to be any appetite to take it further, he replied: “I can’t speak for the club or anything else but I don’t think that’s how the club operates.
“We had our chances, we gave it our best shot. Look it, that shouldn’t happen. I can’t speak for the club but I just think we’ll accept we got beat on the day.”
Many things are said in that auditorium beneath the Hogan Stand by men whose heart-rates are still sky-high from the adrenaline of battle.
Graciousness in defeat is something that often lacks. When it exists, it’s often thinly veiled, in a kind of Jose Mourinho ‘I prefer not to speak’ way.
O’Rourke’s gut instinct was to accept defeat. He knew of the incident, he’d seen it unfold and crucially, he also knew neither Mullin or Casey had touched the ball or directly interfered with the play.
He added that while he couldn’t speak for the club, he felt it was not “how the club operates”.
There was no sense among the Glen contingent on Sunday evening that they’d been cheated out of it. If anything, the media coverage whipped up hopes of a replay that they hadn’t really considered in the immediate aftermath.
At the time of writing on Monday evening, Glen had made no final decision on whether they would bring an objection to Croke Park over the result.
But to hear O’Rourke’s words and to see his body language, it would be very difficult to imagine he’d do a u-turn.
The GAA’s antiquated rules put Glen in an impossible position over it.
Despite halting the game after the incident to send Dara Mullin to the line, referee Derek O’Mahoney – who had an excellent game – didn’t make mention of it in his report.
Croke Park sources have told The Irish News that there would be no investigation of it unless Glen were to lodge an objection.
The evidence is as clear as you would ever need. It would be an open-and-shut case only for the fact that Glen are the ones that have to open it.
That’s deeply unfair on the club. A rule written long before the blanket TV and streaming coverage of games should be superceded by more modern practice.
The whole rulebook, from top to bottom, is in drastic need of overhaul.
GAA presidential nominee Jarlath Burns has promised to look at that if elected. That’s reason enough to give him the job.
The optics of Glen accepting a replay offered to them is different to going looking for one.
To do so would leave them open to criticism of not taking their oil.
Then you look at it a different way, that this becomes a moral judgement call, and people in Maghera would be entitled to question why they should show mercy to a club that have basically abused the GAA’s transfer system to bring in a Footballer of the Year nominee.
Kilmacud’s All-Ireland will always have an asterisk next to it.
By not objecting, Glen would be letting Kilmacud off the hook. Deliberate or not, they shouldn’t have had 16 players on the pitch.
The problem for Glen is that if they took it away and were to win a replay, they’d just have a different asterisk.
There’s also the danger of appealing and then losing the replay too, and what that does for their future.
A statement released last night said that it was "extremely disappointing" that Croke Park had placed the onus on the club rather than dealing with it themselves.
They’re entitled to object. If they do, they’ll win and get their replay. You’d have to say good luck to them, because ultimately Kilmacud broke the rules.
But, going back to the rulebook, the prescribed punishment for the crime seems draconian and a bit unfair.
Hard as it is to swallow, and as much right as they have to go the other way, Glen having the dignity and class to accept the result as it was would be a great mark of the values of their club, community and people.
The trophy and medals were first choice but you can’t always win.
Malachy O’Rourke’s gut and Glen’s strong moral compass have rarely served either of them wrong.
Completely understandable statement from Glen. They shouldn't have to object when the evidence has been seen by just about every person on the island. Another example of the mad rulebook. Jarlath Burns has promised to fix it if he's president, reason enough alone to put him in https://t.co/N9u3mFuRpm
— Cahair O'Kane (@CahairOKane1) January 23, 2023
