GAA President jumps the gun in baffling take on return of games

Inside Track with John McIntyre

It’s difficult to break ranks with a well-intentioned President of a major sporting organisation in the face of a national health emergency, but we live in a democracy and are allowed to articulate an alternative perspective.

First of all, we had to pick up ourselves off the floor of sporting depression after digesting GAA President John Horan’s comments on the Sunday Game about the consequences of Covid-19 on fixtures. The Association’s chief didn’t put a tooth in it – there will no games at club or county level once social distancing remains central to tackling the coronavirus.

Nobody will argue will Horan’s basic premise that the GAA doesn’t want a single fatality on its hands by facilitating the playing of matches when Covid-19 is still a major health issue in the country, but his stream of understandable consciousness is way too premature and, in the process, has led to widespread dismay.

At a time when publicans and hairdressers, for instance, are lobbying hard for a quicker return than allowed in the Government’s roadmap for lifting restrictions, the GAA is going the other way. The go-ahead had already been given for pitches to reopen on May 15, with groups of no more than four allowed to participate in fitness activity.

Furthermore, from June 8, teams were being allowed to train, with competitive action due to take place from July 20. But what does the GAA do instead? It completely slams this window of opportunity shut and rules out the use of its pitches and the prospect of any training until late July. It’s a baffling reaction.

I would have seen some merit in delaying everything until the second phase of lifting restrictions on June 8 just be on the safe side, but the GAA couldn’t leave it at that and by pushing everything back so far, it only increases the prospect of nothing happening at all. That is a dereliction of duty to rank and file members up and down the country.

Why can’t GAA just respond as the crisis evolves rather than jumping the gun? Horan’s statement has now left the association with less wriggle room than all the other sporting bodies. Of course, nobody will argue with his sentiments about the GAA’s responsibility to the community, but ruling out the prospect of taking calculated risks is hard to justify.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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