SIDELINE CUT:The big summer show has already been on for over a month, but it is becoming clear it's starting to take on a tired look

TRAIPSING UP the gentle hill that leads to Fitzgerald Stadium last Sunday gave one the distinct impression of 30,000 people going through the motions. The Killarney ground is one of the most evocative of all Irish sports stadiums, what with the crumbling façade of the original stadium walls framing the ultra-modern dressingroom, the deep bowl effect of the pitch reminiscent of the ancient coliseums and the panoramic backdrop directly behind the pitch never less than a glory.

The touchstones of the championship were in place: all routes into town were choked, the flag sellers were out in force and the pubs were doing brisk business. It looked and sounded like a bumper championship Sunday. Still, the day lacked the real edge on which the summer championship is supposed to thrive.

From the beginning of this year’s extravaganza, there has been a sense that the venerable old tournament is beginning to drag. The promotion has never been better and the television coverage is superb. But the big show has been already on for over a month now and only one thing has become clear: the All-Ireland championship is starting to look tired.

On the radio recently, the wonderfully pessimistic Joe Brolly told listeners that when he bumped into Frank McGuigan shortly before Tyrone played Armagh in the first round of the Ulster championship, the Ardboe legend told him that he wouldn’t be travelling to see a match “where neither team could get beat”.

And that is at the heart of the problem that is turning the GAA summer into a drag. The qualifying system and the attraction of the second chance has blunted the adrenalin for fans. The serious contenders know that win or lose in their provincial brackets, they should be able to negotiate a safe passage through to the quarter-finals regardless.

The old cliché that the Masters golf tournament does not truly begin until the last nine on Sunday holds true as far as the All-Ireland hurling and football quarter-finals go. It is only then that the competition takes on that urgent, do-or-die grandeur of the old championship.

The Kerry and Cork game did not lack for drama last weekend and the commitment of the players was never in doubt but, ultimately, the bigger picture cannot be entirely eliminated from the minds of the players and mentors. They knew they would meet again – and the weirdly-achieved draw means that they will lock horns in Cork this evening, an engagement that both could have done without.

Cork and Kerry must be sick of playing each other and the odds are that they will meet later in the summer in Croke Park. And so, the games go on, in the knowledge that the definitive encounters await them further along the path. This is not by way of adding to the stern and cranky calls for the abolition of the provincial championship system. Killing off the provincial trophies would be a limiting step because it would mean that the only meaningful prize on offer for the GAA’s elite hurling and football teams would be the MacCarthy and Maguire cups.

Most counties, in other words, would never win anything. The unexpected triumph by Sligo in Connacht two years ago ought to be proof enough that the provincial contests still have meaning. But there is no reason why they cannot become more streamlined. This year’s Connacht football championship, for instance, started on May 15th when Mayo visited New York. The final is scheduled for the third Sunday in July. Two months to play five games! Of course, the final of the Connacht competition is designed so that the winning and losing sides can continue their momentum into the All-Ireland competition. But increasingly, there is the sense of a production dragging on interminably. The All-Ireland championships have become the Heaven’s Gate of world sport.

In recent years, the GAA has become caught between two cultures. It still responds to the heartbeat of its great and sprawling Sunday tradition. But it has, inevitably, wandered into the offices of corporatism and that has led to slicker advertising and a burgeoning collection of photographs of the games brightest players looking moody (or at least deeply uncomfortable) as they promote this brand of car or that brand of sports apparel.

Nobody could begrudge players for making the most of their profile. But the gradual move towards glossiness has given rise to a new way of talking about Gaelic games. It is common to hear the championship being referred to as a “product” now.

The All-Ireland championships are supposed to be a phenomenon that transcends the manipulation and deliberation that goes into the production of anything. The whistle is supposed to go and the competition is supposed to spin away on an unreadable and uncontrollable path of its own devising. And even if the same teams almost always win in the end, there is generally a bit of madness and a day or two of wildness in arriving at the result.

Of course, all this would be heresy to the fabled Championship Man, who, in case you haven’t heard it, is a true and often drop-dead funny homage to the caricatures that patronise the GAA – The Man With Radio To His Ear – and the traditions (The Third Man Tackle, The Championship Haircut) common to every club in the country.

Fans of the radio column will be pleased at the announcement that the Championship Man compact disc was launched just last night (in the unimpeachably strong GAA territory of Ballinrobe and is available nationwide from the weekend). Another notable production to brighten an uneventful opening passage to the championship is the wonderfully entitled hurling book, The Stripy Men, a handsome trawl through a century of Kilkenny hurling by the late Joe Cody.

There is, of course, every chance that this year’s All-Ireland competitions will take light later. But so far there has just been slow, thick smoke rising from the bonfire. We wait in hope for the real spectacle.

n The Stripy Men: Kilkenny’s Hurling Story To 2008 is published by Mac Oda Publishing. All proceeds go to the MS Society of Ireland.