Ciaran Whelan applauds the GAA’s stance on pitch invasions, reflects on the lack of respect to officials and reckons Micko would be mad to take over in Monaghan.
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The idea of thousands of supporters getting onto the field at Croke Park after the All-Ireland final is a longstanding tradition in the GAA, and there are people who would like to see it continuing. But it’s a tradition that’s going to have to stop, and events after the All-Ireland hurling final on Sunday are a step in the right direction.
The measures the GAA and the Croke Park stadium management put in place to prevent a pitch invasion worked very well. Regardless of the outcome of the game, it was always going to be emotionally charged at the final whistle. There had been a fear that, despite the additional fencing and stewarding, people would get on the pitch in any case. But they managed to prevent that from happening and looking at the pictures on television it appeared that they did so without too much trouble, and that has to be seen as a positive development.
As a player, I was on the field for several pitch invasions after Dublin’s Leinster championships and while I never felt that I was in any real anger, it’s not something players enjoy in the slightest. The presentation following the Leinster final in 2002 took place on the field, without the crowd making its way onto the pitch, and it was definitely the one I enjoyed the most, because you had the time and space to take it all in. The throng of people on the field might look a lot better from afar than it is in reality, especially if you’re a player. The crowds gather around you and you feel smothered, and all you can think of is getting close to the stand and inside the cordon of the Gardai and stewards.
Forcing your way through a crowd doesn’t give you much chance to enjoy the elation of the occasion, and you could see with the Tipperary players on Sunday that they were able to do that. Also, the fact that the losing side were able to stay out and give respect to the winners is something that was lost in the past, because the losing team would always have got off the pitch as quickly as possible. Another bonus was the post-match interview with Liam Sheedy, which went out over the public address so that everyone in the stadium could hear it.
Everything seemed to pass off very well. This is the first step and it’s something that will move on from here. It was a culture within the GAA that had to change, and the only place to start to do that was the very top. There are health and safety issues, there are insurance issues, and hopefully, now that it’s passed off successfully, and now that there’s a definite commitment from the GAA to change things, we’ll see an end to the days of thousands of people getting onto the field at the end of every big game.
Culture of violence
If pitch invasions represent one culture within the GAA, another much more sinister one is the culture of violence against match officials. We’ve seen the latest high-profile incident this week with the Derry CCC proposing that Eoin Bradley serve a 48-week suspension arising out of an alleged assault against a referee during a club game last weekend.
If it was necessary to start at the very top to put an end to pitch invasions, you have to start at the very bottom when it comes to respecting officials.
The standard of officiating around the country is not very high and referees might frustrate the life out of you sometimes, but the games needs these people as volunteers and no-one can condone violence against them.
You see it at games from under-8s upwards – parents shouting and bawling at referees. That’s the example they set for children, who will then go on and do the same, and you have the situation where the same players who might abuse referees in Gaelic football go out and play a rugby match and are very respectful towards the officials.
You have the ask the question: Who would be a referee? That’s the reality of the situation. It’s not a nice position to be in when you’re taking abuse from everywhere, no matter how small the game. In fact, it’s probably even more prevalent at club level, and incidents have been happening for years. Everyone remembers the one where a referee was locked in a boot in Wicklow but incidents are happening every week.
The GAA probably needs to introduce a campaign designed to increase the respect for officials, and I think we saw something of that in the “Give respect†logo on the referee’s jersey for the hurling final on Sunday.
It will take a lot of hard work to change the culture, but if they can manage to do it, you’d probably find that you’d attract more people to become referees. The reality is that not many people who’ve been involved in the game as players go on to become referees. Dermot Deasy, who was full back on the Dublin team in the ’90s, is a referee at the moment but he’s the exception, on the Dublin club scene at least. It’s a massive task, but if it can be sorted out that could change in the future. That’s what we have to aim for.
Managerial merry-go-round
By the end of the year probably every second county in the country will have already changed their manager or be on the look-out for a new one. The annual manager’s merry-go-round has well and truly started and this week we saw Mick O’Dwyer linked with the Monaghan manager’s job.
Micko to Monaghan? No chance
There are an awful lot of rumours doing the rounds but I’d take a “Micko to Monaghan†one with a pinch of salt. Micko will be managing someone next year, whether that’s Wicklow or someone else, but it’s hard to see him taking over in Monaghan. To be honest, whoever gets that job is going to have a very difficult job on their hands because of the circumstances of Seamus McEnaney’s departure.
The players seem to have had a very good rapport with McEnaney and they’re clearly quite disgruntled by the way the whole thing has been handled there. It’s going to be hard to get those players onside, and to be honest I wouldn’t imagine there will be too many people applying for it.
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