Field of dreams

A TV show is giving footballers another shot at GAA glory, with the chance to play Dublin by Christmas. Ian O'Riordan reports

A few years ago, the GAA produced probably its best ad campaign, based on some old Kennedy wisdom. "Ask not what your county can do for you . . ." it intoned over images of pride in the county jersey. The ad is still running, and GAA pride is still soaring.

Sometimes, though, there is no knowing what exactly it is you can do for your county: be talented enough to don the county jersey? Score the winning point at Croke Park on All-Ireland Sunday? But time or opportunity can slip by.

Television gives us frequent proof that few things in life are more common than wasted talent. It applies to sport as much as to anything else. If potential pop stars and supermodels can go unnoticed, then why not the inter-county footballer? Sport has long talked about people who could have been contenders.

So it's Saturday morning, and a television crew arrives at Thomas Davis GAA grounds in Tallaght for the start of a seven-month shoot, to be the first scene in Underdogs, an ambitious series that will be on TG4 later in the year.

The concept is simple. Of several thousand applicants from around the country, 120 players have been invited to the Leinster trial. Similar numbers will attend trials in the three other provinces in the coming weeks. Three notable GAA figures will select about 25 players and, in less than six months, train them, in front of the cameras, to play against the Dublin senior football team.

That game, the climax of Underdogs, will be broadcast live on TG4 in December, giving the team of unknowns 15 minutes of fame that might just last a lifetime.

There is just one restriction: no applicant can have been part of a county panel for a competitive match at any level above under-16. The aim of the Underdog team is to prove that the system, not the players, has failed and that although time passes, talent remains.

Yet within minutes of the first of Saturday's four trial matches starting, it appears that not everyone who applied to Underdogs is blessed with talent. The initial showing is best described as mixed. The most obvious talent seems to be for kicking the ball wide. The question is more who to leave in than to leave out.

Brian Mullins, four-time All-Ireland winner with Dublin and a former county manager, is one of the three Underdogs selectors. He consults Mickey Ned O'Sullivan, former county manager of Kerry and also an All-Ireland winner, and, later in the day, Jarlath Burns, former captain of Armagh.

"There's no one word or sentence to describe what I saw today," says Mullins. "We know the standard of football at All-Ireland senior level, have got used to that, and maybe we expected too much the first day, that a number of people would come out here and give an outstanding performance.

"So I don't think it will support anybody out there who deluded themselves that this concept would prove all the football selectors around the country wrong in every detail. But clearly some lads there have talent. And I'd still be confident that if we get a committed group and improve their levels of fitness, and their skills, too, then we can mould them into the kind of unit that can compete with a senior county team like Dublin."

For the people behind Underdogs, getting the series off the ground hasn't been easy. For two years the idea floated around the office of Adare Productions, the independent programme maker that sent this morning's crew, but with little response. TG4 finally came on board, with the obvious requirement the series be made as Gaeilge.

Brian Reddin, who is directing the series, admits there have been some compromises. "We wanted to take this idea of reality TV to another level and into the realm of sport," he says. "Originally, we wanted to do it with the national soccer team, but that just wasn't feasible for various reasons. Then we wanted to use the All-Ireland football champions, but they won't be known until next September, and there was no guarantee we could get them either. What was important is that we had a David and a Goliath. And Dublin will provide a Goliath."

Evan Chamberlain, the series' producer, believes Underdogs will appeal to a huge audience and is confident, too, that the talent will emerge.

"This is taking the concept into a part of our culture and something that is part of a lot of people's lives," he says, "and in most cases we're dealing with players on the fringes of county trials but who never got their chance."

One of them is Mark Wright. Now 25, he missed the cut during trials with Kildare but is clearly talented. Younger brother Michael is on the senior Kildare panel. After his performance on Saturday, Mark has been recalled for tomorrow morning's second Leinster trial, which includes more stringent fitness tests.

"I've always wanted to make it to that level and play senior but never got the chance," he says. "I think most people who do make it through have a little bit of luck, either because they're the right height at the right age or whatever.

"I suppose I'm older and wiser now and saw this as another chance. And I think the standard here is quite similar, so I'm in with a fair shout. If I don't make it, then it's no skin off my back, and I'll watch the show anyway.

"But I would also have interest in this kind of television, especially when it's about football. And I do think it will make a good programme, seeing these players giving it their all. A lot of people watch GAA on television anyway, and I can see the idea catching on in some other sports, too, especially soccer."

But can there be life beyond Underdogs? Mickey Ned O'Sullivan believes so. "That for me was one of the main appeals of the thing. If we pick 20 guys in the end to play Dublin and two of those are from Clare, I think the Clare manager will have to look at those two.

"And I know there are players in every county who never got their chance or were passed over for various reasons. They might have been playing in the wrong division or were concentrating on their studies or their careers. Then their lives level out and they think again about getting another crack."

O'Sullivan knows, too, that talent will take you only so far in the sport, that there is also the perspiration factor. "The fact is that these guys have been passed over by the system and already programmed like being the underdog. So we've got to get them thinking with the mind of an inter-county player. And we've got to get them fit, because we can't alter their skill level a whole lot in such a short space of time.

"But we have one agenda: to produce the best team we can. And the TV crew has another: entertainment. We're getting a compromise. And, ultimately, sport is about entertainment. Normally, creating an inter-county player can take 10 years. We've got to do it in six months or less. And we have ways and means of doing that."

And that should be entertainment.

Underdogs begins on TG4 in October, with the final game, against Dublin, shown live on December 14th