We live in stirring times. It was possible at the weekend to attend a Central Council meeting and hear a delegate in all seriousness declaim to his colleagues: "To hell with the rules!" Naturally the president Seβn McCague gently but firmly pointed out that, as the business of Central Council was to uphold rules, such a sentiment was hardly appropriate. But holding the line on implementing rules is a perennial task rather than an expression of some millennial zeitgeist. So here's 10 reasons to remember 2001, that should stand the test of time - and there's still four months left.
1) All-Ireland Football Qualifiers: The most obvious achievement was the revamping of the football championship. There were initial operational difficulties, most of which can be sorted out, but in general this was a reform without a downside. The championship was immeasurably strengthened with enhanced opportunities for all counties and a final quartet that, without much argument, can be seen as the best four counties around. Loss of revenue within the counties has been addressed, with the additional funds from the extra fixtures subsidising the shortfall in club attendances. Besides, what county wouldn't shell out for the sort of summer enjoyed by Westmeath and Sligo?
2) The Calendar Year: Last Saturday's decision to accept the report of Competitions Work Group. This moves the National Leagues to a calendar year and buries the old nonsense of a competition cranked up within weeks of the All-Ireland final, staffed by significantly under-strength teams, and causing despair to managers who have to get things on the road with shadow teams, worry about getting a few points under their belt before Christmas, and then watch whatever momentum has been generated killed stone dead while everyone breaks for two months.
3) Rule 42: Last April's congress debate on the deletion of Rule 42 was in one way an embarrassment for the GAA. By one vote the conservatives carried the day when the use of Croke Park for other sports was discussed. From a different perspective it became clear that the provision isn't long for the world. In time the death knell will be seen to have sounded in tandem with Cathal Lynch's speech in favour of repeal. As Lynch, an organiser with the European Board, listed the sports which willingly lent their facilities to the GAA in places like Brussels and the Hague, the small-minded clamour of a Saturday afternoon in Dublin faded into its historical context.
4) Rule 21: There may be nothing certain about political progress - or regression - in Northern Ireland, but one thing is clear: the contentious rule will come under the most severe scrutiny it has endured since being reintroduced nearly a century ago. As politicians struggle with the question of a new policing service in the North, so the GAA will have to redefine its relationship with the new force. In so doing, Seβn McCague and his officials may also have to redefine relationships within the association, but the outcome of the consultations, the start of which were announced at the weekend, will have to entail some departure. Either Rule 21 will go or the GAA is going to find itself taking sides to a far greater extent than even at present. In other words, the last exit is looming.
5) FMD: The total wind-down of sporting activity last March paralysed the GAA. Faced with a particularly pressing need for revenue, the authorities were contemplating crisis at one stage with the question of abandoning certain competitions and championships hovering in the air. Having endured the sacrifices with a Roman stoicism, top officials were able to breathe a sigh of relief when restrictions were lifted in April and drive through a packed schedule that recovered all lost ground. Most significantly, the crisis proved that fixtures could be run off quickly and efficiently when everyone involved had a mind to - an outcome of some relevance to point 2 above.
6) Stadium Ireland: For something that has yet to cause a sod to be turned or a single line of planning permission to be granted, Stadium Ireland has already brought great joy. Sport in the country has been snapping up the largesse on offer as the Taoiseach squares everyone. The £60 million will be seen in the future to have been the final injection that guaranteed the Croke Park redevelopment wouldn't be an intolerable drain on the association.
7) Drugs: So far there haven't been any tests conducted on footballers or hurlers, but they're on the way. At present there are genuine fears that educational procedures haven't been adequate and that players could inadvertently test positive. Even if this doesn't happen this year and medical officers and teams get on top of the problem, there's still the melancholy certainty that footballers and hurlers will be found out in the years ahead - and not for inadvertent use either.
8) Hurling: The last fig leaf protecting the decency of Leinster hurling was cast to the four winds by Galway. So the lack of competition wasn't entirely down to the presence of the outstanding team of our time. The lack of competitiveness in three of the four provinces taken together with the success of the football qualifiers - to be copied in next year's hurling championship - have caused many to accept that the old structures aren't working any more. A league-based All-Ireland to come within 10 years.
9) Strategic Review Committee: The most serious review of the GAA since the McNamee Commission 30 years ago will report in a few months. It is likely to lead to recommendations for wide-ranging change. Increasingly the administrative structures of the association are shown up as cumbersome and amateur in the worst sense of the word. The status quo has in the past held a fatal attraction for the GAA's highest councils and further indulgence will chronically handicap the association.
10) All-Ireland Banquets: One of the great achievements of Jarlath Burns's Players Committee in its short life to date has been the scrapping of lunch the day after the All-Ireland finals. There can have been fewer more dismal duties for a defeated team than to have had to turn up for a formal lunch a day later. It wasn't great for the rest of us either.
smoran@irish-times.ie.
