I was reading Ciarán Hinds’ wonderful interview in The Irish Times on Saturday when one line, often repeated by those in his profession, jumped out at me - “There are a lot of my friends who have the same talent as me, but never got the breaks.” Actors are apt to say this quite a bit, and having read my fair share of Hollywood tell-alls, the movie business has never really struck me as a meritocracy in the strict sense.
It’s easy for someone as busy and successful as Hinds to say that, even if it might serve to minimise the amount of hard work he put into his career. Certainly it would come across as sour grapes for one of those aforementioned friends of his to say it.
But there is no more cut-throat and meritocratic business in the world than sport. The English football pyramid is clogged with agents, sick with money, and grotesquely unable to provide a framework whereby young players can be both developed as athletes and prepared for a life outside and after football… but there’s no such thing as an undiscovered talent. It is, in the narrow sense of the word, rigorously fair when it comes to the identification of pure sporting ability.
The idea that the GAA is a meritocracy too, even with all its faults and failings, is back on the agenda this week with the return of the Underdogs series on TG4 (the first episode of the season begins Thursday at 9.30pm).
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When the show first debuted on TG4 in 2004, it heralded the arrival onto the national consciousness of two players who would end up as All-stars, Kieran Donaghy of Kerry and Pearse O’Neill of Cork. That first Underdogs team even went on and beat the reigning All-Ireland champions Kerry, 3-11 to 2-11 after extra-time.
The show at the time was a bit of a sensation; a GAA-based reality TV show which allowed players who had never represented their county, players who may have felt that their experience of intercounty football was something less than a meritocracy, to band together and take on the All-Ireland champions.
The reason the concept was so good in 2004, when it was originally conceived, was that back then the selection of intercounty football teams was not as rigorous as it is now. It may not be a pure meritocracy, but it is certainly more meritocratic in 2022 than it was at the start of the century.
2001 was the first year of the backdoor in the All-Ireland football championship. Most counties quickly followed suit, either that year or the following year.
That situation has evolved now to the extent that every county championship has some element of a group stage in their senior, intermediate and junior championships. The plain fact of the matter is that club players have ample opportunity now to show how good they are, in a way they simply didn’t have in 2000.
If you were a late bloomer on a poor intermediate club side, a player who hadn’t played minor or U21 for your county, and your club team kept getting knocked out in the first round of a no-back-door club championship, then it’s pretty hard for you to make an argument that you’re good enough to play for your county.
Certainly there were players who thrived at the top level despite those handicaps, but it’s easier to understand why a few might have slipped through the cracks. These days if you’ve got three group stage games and maybe even a relegation playoff game or two to show how good you are, then you’ve given an intercounty manager a fairly good idea of what kind of player you are. And they can make judgements on that a lot more thoroughly than on one game in a losing effort.
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The academy system is now also very well bedded-in in most counties, with the identification of young talent getting more and more targeted every year. If there are still biases remaining towards bigger clubs, or more traditional senior clubs, in some counties, those players who are lucky to be there have longer and longer to survive before they reach minor.
There can still be an element of luck at U13, or U15 level but by the time you get to minor you’ve had successive county management set-ups watching you for three or four years - the days of being judged and discarded on the basis of one trial match in January is long gone.
That self-same academy system has nevertheless ensured more and more club players are acquainted with the tools to succeed in their own playing careers, even if it’s not at the highest level - through proper nutrition, gym supervision, and fitness work from an early age.
While it’s getting less and less likely that a show like the Underdogs will uncover another Kieran Donaghy, that basis of preparation means there are still plenty of players out there with the tools to find their own level, even if that’s not at the top level. That may not be the dream ending for players, but at least it’s fair.
