GAA must enforce complete clampdown on all forms of abuse, especially violence

Above: Tipperary’s Kyle Shelly in action against Cork’s Ethan Twomey during this year’s oneills.com Munster Under 20 Hurling Championship semi-final at FBD Semple Stadium. Westside is proposing a return to the Under 18 and Under 21 grades. Picture: Diarmuid Greene/Sportsfile

For something different this week, let’s focus on five changes that the GAA, in my not-so-humble view, needs to embrace.

Firstly, let’s return to the Under 18 and Under 21 format. The experiment simply hasn’t worked. There are too many unintended consequences to the changes that were introduced. It has, in truth, become a mess.

Look at Tipperary at the moment. Under 17 and Under 19 competitions are nearing completion in both codes and the divisions are now busy with Under 21. The inter-county has an Under 20 grade. It’s getting close to a-grade-a-year system, which is nonsensical.

This problem goes back to the decision to drop the minor age to Under 17. It was done in good faith and with good intentions. The hue and cry back the years was all about teenage burnout. Talented teenagers were being destroyed by greedy managers who saw nothing beyond their own narrow focus.

So, the gifted teenager was being dragged in multiple directions by school, by club and by county. Burnout resulted.
It was to address this that the changes were introduced. The Under 17 minor would not be sitting the Leaving Certificate and he was forbidden to play senior. Furthermore, the Under 20 player couldn’t play that grade as well as senior with the county. The latter rule affected a very tiny cohort of players and has made no sense.

Dropping the minor grade to Under 17 brought it under the umbrella of Bord na nÓg and created major confusion as to what other grades to introduce.

This was the unforeseen consequence. Should it be Under 19? Then that left a huge gap to full adulthood, with no competition above 19 for the less talented players. Should it be Under 21? Then the gap from 17 to 21 was too wide. Under 20 was the compromise.

Faced with the confusion, delegates voted for a mish-mash of grades not just in Tipperary but countrywide. Now the realisation is dawning that the old Under 18/Under 21 format was better and a move for a return has growing support.

Some of the rationale for reducing the minor grade to Under 17 no longer exists. Most teenagers do Transition Year so they’re often 19 by the time they face the Leaving Certificate. Greater awareness of burnout and player welfare issues mean that many of the abuses of the past are no longer tolerated.

There was solid logic in the old structure. 18 was seen as a coming-of-age time, a stepping-over-the threshold into adulthood. You could vote at 18, you could marry at 18, so it was a very significant staging post on the road to maturity.

Under 21 too was a significant milestone, the key-to-the-door age, granting full adult membership. There’s no perfect format but that three-year division from 18 to 21 covered most bases. Time, I’d suggest, to accept the error and return to Under 18 and Under 21.

Secondly, it’s surely time to formalise the split season as a permanent reality. In the scientific world so many discoveries, from Penicillin to Teflon, were made by accident. Likewise, the GAA hit on the split season by chance.

Covid was the catalyst. Desperate circumstances required desperate measures and so the split season was forced upon the association. It was just as well because the musty boardroom would never have voted such a drastic measure into existence.
Suddenly, players and public alike, similar to the good Lord in Genesis, saw that this was good.

However, it has its knockers, so it needs protection. The opposition comes mainly from pundits and journalists at national level and one can’t escape the sense of vested interest here. These guys – and they are mostly guys – suddenly found a vacuum in their lives. There was space to fill.

Malachy Clerkin complained in a podcast about the empty month of August and drew a barrage of social media fire. What was the man on about? The rest of us were swamped in a tsunami of club action. The poor man should get out more and maybe take Donal Óg Cusack with him.

In truth the split season has been a gift to the clubs; players and the public have loved it. It has put the club forefront and centre and brought structure to the games’ programme. All that club action played over August, September and October in ideal weather and perfect pitches was a new experience. Of course, you can tinker a bit with the All-Irelands and shove the finals back a week or two but the essential principle of the split season is here to stay.

Giving the inter-county scene seven of the twelve months is surely enough – every sport has its season. The publicity deficit that some feared hasn’t materialised either because the absence of inter-county has been counter-balanced by an increased focus on the club, both locally and nationally. Let’s confirm the split season as a GAA reality.

Thirdly, let’s sort this crazy anomaly between club and county with regard to the cynical foul rule. It is incomprehensible that you would have different playing rules for inter-county and club games.

Many, I suspect, were not even aware that this anomaly existed but the extent of cynical fouling in the club championship this season has surely served to highlight the problem.

Actually, at inter-county level there has been a dilution of this rule evident over the past season. Perhaps because of past controversies, referees have shied away from implementing the rule and you can find several examples if you review championship 2022.

The key point that needs stressing once again is that the rule is designed to penalise a foul that cynically prevents a goalscoring opportunity. May I put the stress again on the word opportunity? It doesn’t mean there’s a goal-scoring certainty – is there ever? It simply means that there’s a chance to shoot for a goal. Therefore, a defender, or defenders, being back is irrelevant to the rule.

So, can inter-county referees start enforcing this rule once again and can the legislators please introduce it to the club game.

My fourth wish for GAA action is for a complete clampdown on all forms of abuse, and especially violence, whether directed against officials or opposition players. I don’t mean this window-dressing of pre-match handshakes but genuine punitive action that hurts the offenders.

Once again at the weekend we had social media highlighting an all-out brawl at Parnell Park involving players and spectators during a Leinster club hurling game. The sight of a hurley-wielding virago wading into the action would be humorous if it wasn’t so deplorable.

There is one strand of thought that decries the use of smart phones and technology to highlight such incidents, with their perceived damage to the image of the association. I disagree. There’s too much of this happening so it needs to be highlighted. Put it online, shame the clubs and individuals involved and maybe sheer embarrassment alone will lead to some action.

The association needs to tackle this head on. Expel clubs from competitions, fine them heavily, ban individuals and get the gardaí involved where criminal assaults have taken place.

You have to have zero tolerance of this carry-on.

My fifth wish is an old chestnut that continues to malign the game of hurling – the thrown ball. It’s everywhere in every game and there’s nothing being done to tackle the problem. I’ve even lost patience with referees in this regard, despite my acknowledgment that the present rule is unenforceable.

Referees do have power in this respect and I have two criticisms of them: firstly, the referees’ body needs to be honest and come out with an admission that the rule is unenforceable; secondly, referees need to stop this token business of blowing for the odd throw as a pretence that they’re enforcing the rule – that irritates as much as the non-enforcement. Conor O’Donovan’s solution needs, at the very least, to be trialled.

Finally, on the games front last weekend, I saw Cappawhite Gaels sneak a very late win over Upperchurch/Drombane in the semi-final of the county Under 19 B hurling championship.

It was a slightly controversial ending. With the sides level and the game over five minutes into injury time, the west side was awarded a free out from just outside their own 40 metre line.

Cappawhite tried to slip in a new ball for the free and the referee reacted by cancelling the award and giving a throw-in. Not legal, I’m afraid. You cannot apply a playing penalty for something a mentor or follower does from the sideline. We had this in a county minor final some years back so it’s disappointing to see its reoccurrence here.

In the event Cappawhite won the throw-in and with Darragh Duggan being fouled as he emerged, another free was awarded to the west champions. This time James Quinlan planted a mighty score from distance to take the honours. Upperchurch must be wondering how they lost the game.