Sport

Hitting the Target: Lack of complaints about GAA's 2021 calendar shows it knows what it's doing

Paintings of supporters, produced by schoolchildren from Dublin and Mayo, fill the seats at Croke Park during Saturday’s All-Ireland SFC final, which brought down the curtain on a tumultuous inter-county season. Picture by Philip Walsh 
Paintings of supporters, produced by schoolchildren from Dublin and Mayo, fill the seats at Croke Park during Saturday’s All-Ireland SFC final, which brought down the curtain on a tumultuous inter-county season. Picture by Philip Walsh  Paintings of supporters, produced by schoolchildren from Dublin and Mayo, fill the seats at Croke Park during Saturday’s All-Ireland SFC final, which brought down the curtain on a tumultuous inter-county season. Picture by Philip Walsh 

LESS than two days after the strangest GAA year in living memory came to an end, plans for the next one, that promises – if that’s the right word – to be every bit as peculiar, were unveiled.

Even with the All-Ireland finals wrapping things up in the middle of wrapping the presents, it won’t be the shortest inter-county off-season in history, nor even in recent history.

The Football League will begin two and a bit months after Dublin beat Mayo in the All-Ireland final for the 435th time, while the hurling begins another week further removed from Limerick’s demolition job on Waterford in the Liam MacCarthy decider.

The last season of a straight knockout hurling Championship was 1996, which was also the last year the League was hyphenated.

Clare lost their 1995-’96 Division One opener to Kerry just 41 days after ending their 81-year All-Ireland famine with victory over Offaly. Which may explain a lot.

In football, the introduction of the backdoor also heralded the end of an era for the League, with 2000 the last time it got underway this side of Christmas.

This year’s old-fashioned knockout football Championship, the first since 2000, was pushed into the depths of winter by Covid and, as a result, Dublin and Mayo will be back on the field for 2021 just over a couple of months after wrapping up the 2020 season.

Both will be in the northern sections of their respective divisions, the most radical departure the GAA has made in concession to the ongoing pandemic, one that would ordinarily be cause for wailing and grinding of teeth because, well, it’s the GAA way isn’t it?

But the entire calendar, a radical departure in so many ways, has passed with barely a murmur of disapproval.

Maybe it’s the Christmas spirit, maybe it’s the idea that there are far more important things to get animated about, or maybe (whisper it) the GAA has got things pretty much spot on.

It’s understandable the jiggery pokery with the Football League, moving it back to its genesis as a regional competition – get polishing the Lagan Cup now, Ulster Council – hasn’t raised much complaint.

It’s been done for obvious reasons, for one year only, and however novel it may prove to be, only rank contrarians will be calling for it to replace the usual structure of the League.

The GAA managed to run off its inter-county Championships astonishingly well given it involved amateur athletes, living and working in their communities.

Sligo’s hurlers and footballers both had to pull out of their respective Championships, but the only other match to fall victim was Offaly’s Christy Ring Cup clash with Kildare and, even after forfeiting, the Faithful were able to return through the backdoor.

The much higher volume of matches in a normal League campaign would simply be asking for trouble and, while some managers and supporters may feel geography has given them a raw deal as they find themselves in the tougher of a North/South divisional split, it’s a small price to pay to play at all.

Most of the complaints about the existence of the second tier Tailteann Cup have been aired long before now, though they’re sure to return as the competition nears – or if a team finds itself demoted to the new ‘B’ Championship because of a League table affected by Covid call-offs or failures to field.

It’s something Cavan or Tipperary – or Division Two Mayo, for that matter – won’t have to worry about with the GAA proposing a caveat to the previous Tailteann Cup regulations that would allow the reigning provincial champions into the Sam Maguire competition no matter where they end up in the League.

It’s hard to imagine that would have been the case if 2021 Division Three Cavan and Tipp hadn’t lit up the grey winter skies with their exploits in Ulster and Munster over the past couple of months, but, again, no-one’s really complaining. Season of goodwill and all that.

The split in the season, getting inter-county business cleared up by the middle of July to allow the clubs to return in what will hopefully be a safer environment, was described by


the GAA’s Feargal McGill as a “no-brainer” of a decision.

While some, including former Armagh star and current Clontibret manager John McEntee, had previously voiced support for a club first model, aping 2020, it’s difficult to disagree with McGill.

He cited the fact restrictions over playing club games early in the year could still be in place, as well as the desire to give as many players as possible the chance to have meaningful games.

But what went unsaid was that, however much last summer’s extravaganza of long evenings and club matches shown live on television and streamed around the world had GAA folk bursting with pride and going on like no-one anywhere actually cares about the county team, everything wasn’t all rosy.

There were pitch invasions and squads handing the cup around for whole villages to drink from. Grounds were packed. Pictures in this newspaper and others showed as much.

It wasn’t a good a look and when the defences of it runs to “yeah, but look how many tins of biscuits the club handed out to old people” or, “yeah, but it’s not as bad as X, Y, or Z” all you’re doing is clinging to whataboutery.

So more time, more vaccines, and maybe this time a bit more sense and personal responsibility, will give the 2021 club season the chance to be even better than 2020.

One last check to find out if a day of digestion of the calendar has produced much dissent and it seems Oisin McConville would prefer the Tailteann Cup final to be played the same day as the All-Ireland SFC final to give it some added weight and better sell it to the counties that find themselves competing in it.

When perfectly valid, well argued points are the best you can find in disagreement to as big a GAA move as this, you know the Association has done something right.

Although it should be pointed out that the decision to play the Tailteann Cup final before an All-Ireland hurling semi-final also makes a lot of sense. It means a Croke Park double-header for Antrim’s footballers and hurlers.

Santa, if you’re listening...