Gaelic football is far from dead – summer will have plenty of great games

For decades the Eurovision song contest was a rarefied and mildly camp affair happily divvied up between the brandy-and-cigar members of the gentleman’s club formerly known as the EEC. And then, all of a sudden, it wasn’t. Newbies Latvia won the prize in 2002 and a year later, it was the Turks who had primed themselves well, ending a quarter of a century of tunes which failed to impress western sensibilities with an entry, so to speak, that conquered the continent.

In the pub that night, there was the usual mild, passing interest once it was ascertained that Ireland had paid the price for not sending Johnny Logan, would not win and therefore not cost the Irish taxpayer a couple of million bucks. And as the Turks gathered the douze points which left them unassailable, there came from the depths of the pub an unforgettable salute from an impartial Dubliner: "The Sickman of Europe my arse!"

That phrase came rattling through the time tunnel this week as the debates raged about the declining health of Gaelic football, the sport which seems to be flung from the doghouse to the sanatorium and back again. What does the big ball game and its doomed participants have to do to catch a break? Jarlath Burns, not a man for radical pronouncement, was so overcome with grief while watching Derry play Dublin last Saturday night that he declared the entire shooting match over and done with. Gaelic football was "dead". Bloody hell! Cancel the Sky subscription so. Joe Brolly, meanwhile, took Mickey Harte to task when the Tyrone manager argued that he was not in the entertainment business.

Training regimes

Nobody doubts that Joe Brolly cares deeply about the game and means it when he says that he is worried that the joy is being sucked from it through training regimes and defensive systems and the commercialisation of the game and the like. But sometimes you read and listen to Joe and it seems as if he was wishing it were the early 1990s all over again, when Anthony Tohill was a young colossus about to stalk the landscape, it was a pound-a-pint in the Bot’ and Laverys and the Stone Roses hadn’t even split up, let alone done the comeback thing. Brother, don’t we all but it ain’t going to happen.

Among those canvassed in the furious debate was Larry Tompkins, the former Cork manager and scoring machine, whose Rebel vintage engaged in a robust and gripping four-year battle for national supremacy with Meath. Meaning that those teams hated one another with a passion.

The current line of criticism about the defensive systems of the contemporary age hark back to a dreamier and lost idyll of blistering, direct football, of godlike kicking skills, of scores galore, of fearsome (but clean!) battles in the sky and the kind of GBH challenges which were regularly hailed on the Sunday Game as "manly". You could pick any era or any match but out of randomness, let's resurrect the 1990 All-Ireland football final, when Cork emulated Meath 1987/88 by completing back to back All-Irelands. It was the last instalment of a compelling rivalry that had spilled into ugliness – or manliness – quite a few times. You could instance a number of fine things about that match – direct running, good fielding, some brilliant points. However, you could also note the frequent fouling and the harum-scarum patterns of play – possession was not so jealously guarded then.

And you could also point out that the half time score was six bloody points to five. Mickey Harte was not managing that day, nor was Jim McGuinness. There were no fiendish systems or blanket defences or 20,000 hand-passes to bemoan and yet two of the best teams of the modern era produced just eleven scores between them in one half of football – and most of those were frees. The second half wasn’t exactly an orgy in front of goal either. It finished 0-11 to 0-9.

Why? Because it happens. Some games go like that. Every single game takes on a life and a personality of its own. Just last summer, Gaelic football produced, in a 48-hour period, two semi-finals that were regarded as ranking among the most exciting in All-Ireland history. The big fear about Gaelic football is that more and more teams will adapt defensive-minded systems, guarding their half of the field and engaging in a kind of stalemate, reluctant to cede either territory or possession. The sight of Dublin, one of the most radically attack-minded teams the game has seen, dropping extra defenders back against Derry, was enough to make many people crack. All of a sudden, the game is broken. “Something” – that indispensable Irish solution to all Irish problems – had to be done. But what? Make a certain number of players remain in the attacking half of the field? Award two points for scores outside the ‘50’? Allow no more than four consecutive handpasses?

Spirit of the game

You could do all of these things with limited returns. Confining players to certain parts of the field would be contrary to the spirit of the game. You could award higher scores for distance shots and it would be good fun: it would also make goalkeepers stop scorers in many games. As for consecutive passes: you try remembering whether your team is on their third or fourth hand pass with Aidan O’Shea coming at you at a rate of knots from one side and Lee Keegan closing in on the other. Good luck with that.

All of this is nonsense. Gaelic football is just evolving. The game is bigger and bolder minded than it is given credit for. For the first time in its long history, it is going through a phase when the patterns are defined by strategy: by set plays as well as spontaneity. Some days scores are harder to come by but the athleticism and speed – of hand, foot and thought – are more than enough compensation for spectators. And on other days – on summer days – the scoreboard goes berserk. And there is a reason why teams are trying to play like this: they believe it gives them a better shot at winning against the perpetual powers that be.

The league is when teams and managers try these things out. The league has its values but it is still about preparation for the All-Ireland championship, which has always been deeper than mere entertainment. Everyone likes a cracking game: there are plenty ahead this summer. Someday soon, someone is going to shift the debate on and come with a game plan to bypass strong defensive systems. There is always space on the field. It is just a matter of using it. It could well be that some county side is practicing 50-yard passes right now.

Gaelic football is far from dead. But those despairing of the fact that it is no longer the game that they grew up with are right. It isn’t – and it won’t be again.