In today’s Hospital Pass, we give extra weight to Colm O’Rourke’s GAA cock-up committee and discover that, given his GAA background, it’s no surprise Rory McIlroy turned out the way he did.
One thing there is quite enough of in the GAA, and to be honest, in Irish society in general, is the ‘committee’ or to give it its proper phonetic pronunciation, ‘com-mit-teeeeeeeee’.
A quick google search of the words ‘committee’ and ‘GAA’ returns a wide variety of results including terms such as ‘sub-committee’, ‘executive-committee’ and even Aprés Match’s hilarious sketch, The GAA Assimilation committee, which they let loose on Irish audiences during the World Cup in 2006.
Hell, RTE even included the word committee in their latest GAA show The Committee Room, a weekly in-depth discussion about the burning issues in the GAA with the wonderful Marty Morrissey.
As if there weren’t enough committees already, renowned GAA pundit Colm O’Rourke wants to form another one, but this committee could be the exception to the rule in terms of the GAA, as it might actually serve a purpose.
It turns out we weren’t the only ones outraged at the treatment of Brian Farrell at the hands of the disciplinary authorities last week.
But while we were content to write a breezy and rather harmless column about the topic, Farrell’s fellow Meath native O’Rourke went one step further and suggested setting up a committee to deal appropriately with those guilty of tarnishing the reputation of our beloved association on a weekly basis.
“As things stand and if the present set-up continues, there is an obvious need for another committee which would have to meet every Monday morning. This should be called the cock-up committee and would be the busiest of all GAA committees,” O’Rourke wrote in a hard-hitting column Sunday Independent column.
“The reason of course is because there are so many cock-ups on a Sunday that there is a full-time job to sort them out on a Monday.
“I often got more of a belt on the back of my ear with an envelope than what happened in this incident (Farrell’s supposed fisticuffs with Emmet Bolton), yet Farrell gets a month and misses at least one championship match.”
Hear, hear, we say and not only do we endorse Colm’s suggestions, but are willing to suggest those who should be in the dock for cock-ups in the GAA this weekend.
Step forward the hurlers of both Laois and Galway for startlingly inept and heartless displays on Saturday, Ryan O’Dwyer, for one of the most braindead sending-offs we’ve seen in many a year and finally, Eoin Bradley, for ruining what was an otherwise flawless performance against Armagh with a childish act of petulance towards a justifiably incensed Andy Mallon when the game done and dusted in Clones.
Hang your heads lads.
Back to his roots
Finally, while we all bask in Rory McIlroy’s magnificent winning performance at the US Open, it has been revealed that the GAA had a large part to play in the 22-year old’s development into one of the finest sporting talents on the planet.
It turns out that Rory’s uncle, one Mickey McDonald, was a star forward on the Armagh football team from 1982 to 1987.
According to The Hogan Stand, McDonald scored goals against Kerry, Mayo and Meath in the Orchard County’s run to the National League Final in 1983, which they lost out to Rory’s native Down on a 1-8 – 0-8 scoreline. There were, however, alleged doubts about his ability to do the business on a wet and windy night in Mullingar.
As we might say on this part of the world, it wasn’t from the wind he got it.
