Galway hurling fans getting a raw deal

Date Published: 20-Apr-2010

THE Galway hurling team management and players have deliberately kept their power dry (well, apart from the manager’s RTE radio interview last Sunday) on the unfathomable decision by the GAA to fix the National League final for a 7pm start on Thurles on Sunday week. If the match was to go ahead in the North Pole, the squad and mentors would be there, but that’s not the point.

Our silence on the matter should not be interpreted for one moment as justifying the GAA’s unexpected move which looks certain to backfire on the Association financially, but rather an inherent determination to keep our sights on the ball and not to lose to focus on the job in hand – winning the county’s ninth league title. Local Hurling Board administrators, Joe Byrne and John Fahey, have been fighting the cause at official level and the Galway camp fully supports their efforts.

As team manager, I have little enthusiasm for dragging the affair on, but the CCCC (the Central Competitions Control Committe) are scoring a spectacular own goal on this one. Hurling’s second most prestigious competition deserves a better finale that a 7pm start on a Sunday evening . . . and, the killing part of it all, is that the timing is all down to a rugby match.

The irony surely can’t be lost the Association’s grassroots who, on one hand, are seeing the famed Nemo Rangers GAA Club in Cork being hauled over the coals for daring to allow the Irish rugby team use their facilities and, on the other, witness the GAA not standing behind their own product due to the TV appeal of Munster’s Heineken Cup semi-final.

The whole thing beggars belief.The Galway Hurling Board put two worthy alternatives to Croke Park – an earlier starting time on the Sunday or moving the league finals to the Bank Holiday Monday, but neither proposal was seriously entertained. Have the GAA not learned from the fiasco of 2006 when the National Football League final between Kerry and Galway was also given an evening slot to avoid a clash with another big Heineken Cup match?

There was little more than 6,000 at the Gaelic Grounds as supporters voted with their feet. Now, the GAA are risking the same scenario again. Sure, there is widespread interest in Munster’s fortunes against Biarritz, but what message is officialdom sending out by moving such a big hurling fixture over fears about the impact it would have on the attendance in Thurles if the two games clashed? I’d bet my bottom dollar that there would be a far bigger crowd in Semple Stadium if the final started at 1.30pm or 3.30pm than 7pm. Instead, the GAA have run scared and made a panic move.

Certainly, with former Cork All-Ireland minor winning captain Tomas O’Leary at the base of the Munster scrum and several other Cork men on the team, there is some justification for fearing that the Rebel supporters mightn’t turn out in their usual numbers in Thurles, but that is not the GAA’s problem. The Association is there to market hurling and Gaelic football regardless of what other sports are doing. Of course, it isn’t surprising in the circumstances that the Cork County Board have no problem with the late evening throw in.

The bottom line is that the Galway management and players are united in their appreciation of the men, women and children who follow the team and we feel many of them are being disenfranchised by the timing of the final. Getting back to their homes around midnight with young boys and girls in tow – much later in the case of the many people from Connemara who follow the maroon and white – is an unacceptable (and avoidable) situation.

Though we would fully understand if a large proportion of the Galway supporters give the league final the cold shoulder now, we are still hoping that the fans will show solidarity with the team in Thurles. The county has a group of humble young men who are proud to wear the maroon jersey and are sparing no effort in advancing their quest for titles, but they need supporter back up on Sunday week.

One final thought. Supposing Connacht’s Amlin Cup semi-final against Toulon had been fixed for the same day as the league final would the GAA have been so quick to change the timing of the Cork-Galway match? They wouldn’t have even considered it. In any event, fair play to Gerry Kelly and the Connacht Branch for staging their match on Friday week as they clearly appreciate that a lot of GAA people follow Connacht and vice versa.