While most of us were applauding the GAA for their bid to assist the IRFU stage a Rugby World Cup on this island, one former Ulster chairman was not best pleased, not best pleased at all.
Big pimpin’ on Jones’ Road
We often bemoan the fact that many sports figures these days resort to clichés and bland platitudes rather than telling us how they really feel.
That is why, in some ways, we feel like standing and applauding the comments made by Michael Greenan in this morning’s Irish Examiner. In many, many other ways we don’t. Greenan is a former Ulster Council chairman and he was one of the fiercest opponents of opening up Croke Park to other sports back in 2005.
So, when the issue of opening up GAA grounds to rugby to facilitate RWC 2023 or 2027 was put to him, he didn’t pull his punches.
“No matter what I do now I’m going to be wrong but as it transpired I was right,” he said. “There’s not much point in me trying to do something about it because the people in charge of the GAA are promoting it. We have prostituted ourselves and the bottom line is when you have prostituted yourself for money, the people who make the money are not the prostitutes but the pimps. We all know how much the GAA got for making Croke Park available but does anyone know how much the soccer or the rugby boys got out of it?
“Even if they did put out a number, would it be a true figure?”
And he expected worse to come.
“It’s not finished here. There’ll be more grounds given up. In a few years time, we’ll be trying to work local GAA fixtures around soccer and rugby fixtures.
“What happened was the thin end of the wedge and it’s only getting off the ground now.”
So, the end of the GAA as we know it or, as Liam O’Neill put it, a decision in the national interest. We think we know which side we are leaning towards.
Penalty shootout in GAA?
If there’s one thing Donegal are good at producing, its goalkeepers. For virtually 30 years, the Irish soccer team had a man from the north-west as the last line of defence (Packie Bonner closely followed by Shay Given) and in Paul Durcan, the Donegal senior footballers have a pretty top-class stopper too.
Durcan, who has conceded just twice in Championship 2012, was speaking to GAA.ie today about the upcoming clash with Cork and he revealed that he has ambitions to be a goal scorer, as well as a stopper.
When asked if he would take a penalty if a shootout was introduced in Gaelic football, the Four Masters man jumped at the chance.
“Ah yeah,” said Durcan. “If the boys out the field didn’t want to take them then I’d definitely step up and take one. There are players on the team that can stick them past me any day so it would depend. I would think that I would have the confidence to step up and take one.”
We have seen hurling goalies like Davy Fitz and Damien Fitzhenry dispatch penalties and we have seen Manuel Neuer do the job for Bayern Munich in the Champions League final, but we can’t recall a Gaelic football goalkeeper taking a penalty in a big game.
We wonder will Jim McGuinness turn to Durcan if the chance arises on Sunday? Nah, we don’t think so either.
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