You’re Armagh not the All-Blacks

When a friend sent me this Sportsfile picture of an Armagh fan kissing Kieran McGeeney I responded with the obvious question.

‘Do you know who she is?’

‘It’s his wife,’ came the immediate response.

I was shocked.

As my friend noted:

‘Who kisses their wife on the lips?’

I mean, it’s outrageous. And at a football match - in front of everyone.

Surely there is a law against this type of thing?

I was expecting a hefty fine, possibly even a suspension from the GAA, maybe even some community service.

But nothing. The Armagh couple escaped completely unpunished.

This could set a very dangerous precedent.

Think about out it. What might happen should Armagh beat Kerry?

It doesn’t bear thinking about it.

You wouldn’t get away with it in cycling. Last week at the Tour de France, French cyclist Julien Bernard was racing on his home roads. The local community came out in force to support their man. Competing in a Time Trial which he had no chance of winning, Julien Bernard stopped briefly to kiss his wife and child.

It was a moment which thrilled the watching fans and set hearts fluttering across the world.

The UCI fined Julien Bernard 200 Swiss Francs.

I love cycling.

It’s a proper sport.

For the dullards among you, please note, I jest.

The UCI was wrong to fine Julien Bernard. But in their obsession with details, we can learn a lot from cycling.

Because it’s the details that matter.

Before GAA President Jarlath Burns presented the James Nowlan Cup to Offaly’s captain, Dan Bourke the first institution he thanked was O’Neill’s Sportswear, the company that sponsors the All-Ireland U20 Hurling Championship.

I was aghast.

I have a problem with O’Neill’s.

What they have done this year is a scandal.

If you haven’t noticed, look at the back of Derry’s jerseys. There is no red band. Seen from behind, it looks like a…..Tyrone jersey.

This abomination of a jersey has singularly spoiled what should have been one of the highlights of the season.

I am talking about the goal scored by Derry minor Eamon Young.

The video of this astonishing display of speed, skill and composure has gone viral. It has been watched and admired across the globe by more than 1 million people.

I’ve only watched it three times.

The first time was in awe, the next two times were in disgust.

Seen from behind with his white jersey and red shorts, Eamon Young looks like a Tyrone player.

I’ll not lie. It puts a tight knot in my stomach.

There will be sunbathers on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro and taxi drivers in New Delhi thinking incorrectly that a Tyrone player was responsible for this exhibition of individual excellence.

It is deeply upsetting.

All this crying and moaning and whining about Mickey Harte and not a word about the fact that O’Neill’s have sent the Derry players out in Tyrone jerseys.

And then people wonder why the county senior team misfired this year?

Details matter.

The Armagh minors are another example.

On Sunday this extremely well-drilled Armagh side lost to Derry in the All-Ireland final.

Derry were wearing their Tyrone kits.

And Armagh were wearing their All-Blacks jerseys.

What’s that all about?

Sadly, we know.

It’s part of an Armagh project to present themselves as bigger, tougher, meaner and harder than everyone else.

Again, this is unfortunate.

I used to love Armagh. I shared digs with a squad of Armagh fanatics from Camlough.

Lacey’s on Sunday night. Missing work on Monday. Great people. Great supporters.

For the longest time, Armagh was my second team.

But with the gouging, attempted finger-breaking, constant slabbering and gentle kicks to the head,  this Armagh senior team  have made themselves difficult to love.

I want to love Armagh again because I want to be rooting for them against Kerry.

Kerry have enough All-Ireland titles and enough support, especially in the media.

In the aftermath of Derry’s defeat to Kerry, the innate bias against the North once again rose to the fore.

It was a poor game so automatically that meant it was Derry’s fault.

The pig-headed stupidity of the analysis was astonishing.

Derry v Kerry  is the same as Slovenia v Spain.

Nearly half the Derry team comes from the slope of Carntogher Mountain (Slaughtneil and Glen).

We have a tiny catchment area.

Kerry has 87 GAA clubs, more than double of Derry.

Wisely, Derry didn’t try to beat the Kingdom in a shoot-out.

Derry’s caution was understandable.

But what of Kerry who simply retreated and mirrored Derry’s caginess?

Picture Slovenia parking the bus and Spain responding by doing the same.

Imagine the reaction of the soccer analysts who understand the most basic tactics of their sport.

Kerry v Derry was like watching a big cowardly heavyweight trying to beat a flyweight with jabs.

Kerry’s crime was that they displayed zero adventure, a fact acknowledged by Jack O’Connor afterwards.

Derry’s crime was that they wore Tyrone jerseys.

Hopefully, Armagh will wear their traditional orange jerseys on Saturday.

Armagh: you’re not the All-Blacks.

You’re Armagh.

In consoling the beaten Armagh minor team, Jarlath Burns pointed to their predecessors in 1992 who 10 years later lifted the Sam Maguire Cup.

It was yet another fine speech by Jarlath Burns who knew that  James Sargent’s younger brother, Conor won a Feile with Lavey the previous week.

Jarlath Burns understands the importance of details.

Let’s hope Armagh’s GAA President and his people have something to celebrate and kiss about on Saturday.

Profit before promotion

Watching The Sunday Game a few weeks ago I couldn’t help noticing that Sean Cavanagh’s forehead wasn’t moving.

There wasn’t a single line on it.

It was smoother than a non-stick frying pan.

‘Surely not,’ I said to myself.

‘He’s from Tyrone. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t.’

But with my suspicions provoked, I couldn’t take my eyes off that wrinkle-free forehead.

Then I thought to myself: ‘He’s young. His family might have great forehead genes.’

I checked Wikipedia.

Sean Cavanagh. DOB: 16th of February, 1983.

41.

He’s not that young.

I started to obsess. I fired off a WhatsApp message to a medical friend of mine who specialises in skin treatment.

“Do you think Cavanagh is botoxing?”

The reply was the typically considered response of a medical practitioner. 

Not conclusive but still damning.

“Sean’s wife is into that line of work so it’s a possibility.”

OMG.

Watching The Sunday Game last night, I don’t think I heard a word Sean Cavanagh said.

I just watched Sean’s forehead.

Then I studied Cora Staunton’s forehead

Cora, born 13th December, 1981 (thank you Wikipedia) is 42.

A year older than Sean, Cora has a few lines, which is a few lines more than Sean, who has none.

Now that I suspect Sean is botoxing. I am questioning everything.

Last night, my attention turned to his hair. There is a very even distribution of colour. The experts tell me this is a tell-tale sign. 

And so, this is my abiding memory of RTE’s coverage of the weekend’s games - examining Sean Cavanagh’s hair while not hearing a word the man was saying.

After Derry’s defeat to Kerry, maybe that was for the best.

For the most part, I don’t enjoy listening to RTE’s pundits. Most of them either bore me or annoy me and some manage to do both.

To be a pundit, you need three key qualities. You need to like attention, you need to like money and you need a healthy-sized ego.

A lot of people who aren’t pundits could tick those three boxes.

However, to be a good pundit, you need a charisma that radiates off the screen.

Few people tick that box.

Peter Canavan has it.

Tomás Ó Sé has it.

They speak. You listen.

When Pat Spillane, Joe Brolly and Colm O’Rourke spoke - the nation listened.

That  is the power and influence which RTÉ can wield on this country. 

When the stars align and the cosmos produces a great exhibition of football or hurling, a game on RTÉ will lift the nation’s mood.  It will dictate the conversation in nearly every shop, pub, home and workplace in the country.

GAAGO doesn’t have that punching power.

The fact that the All-Ireland quarter-final between Dublin and Galway wasn’t broadcast on free-to-air television was a complete travesty.

Dublin, the team of the century, was knocked out of the All-Ireland Championship and huge swathes of the population didn’t get to see it.

The hierarchy of the GAA will argue that RTÉ can only screen 35 games per year so it’s impossible to broadcast every live match.

The commercial wing of the GAA also can’t understand why it shouldn’t be allowed to cash in on these games.

The business executives in Croke Park view the games as an ‘asset’ and a ‘product’. And what do you do with a ‘product?’  You sell it.

But this is fundamentally wrong.

In Chapter One of the GAA’s Official Guide, under AIMS AND ETHOS,  we are informed that the BASIC AIM of the GAA is: “the preservation and promotion of Gaelic Games and pastimes”.

Profit isn’t mentioned anywhere.

Failing to broadcast the most important games in the All-Ireland Championship on free-to-air television isn’t just bad decision-making, it contravenes the guiding ethos of the GAA.

Sadly, there is another source of resistance in Croke Park to free-to-air television. Increasingly, there is a view that anyone who sits at home and watch games without paying is a free-loader and a sponger.

This attitude is borderline sinful.

Jerome Quinn, who lost his job with the BBC due to his intransigence over their substandard GAA coverage, captured the mood of many with this message he put on X: “I have to call my 87-year-old mother to tell her I was wrong and the Armagh game isn’t on the telly after all. I presumed the QF’s would be. She introduced me to the GAA all those years ago with her passion but now she is denied. She doesn’t do the internet.”

There are thousands of elderly people across this country who don’t “do the internet”.

My father has a Nokia phone which allows him to make calls and send text messages.

When a text message is completed, it might be only 20 words minus any commas, apostrophes or full stops. 

It’s not that my father or Jerome Quinn’s mother are resistant to GAAGO. It’s just beyond them. They don’t do smart phones. They don’t do streaming services. They don’t do Netflix.

My da does crosswords.

Not only is the technology beyond them, they probably wouldn’t pay for it anyway.  When you get something free of charge, then you are given a choice to pay for it, what is the reaction going to be?

GAAGO isn’t a bad idea.

It could serve a purpose for a certain number of games.

But the fixtures which get the country talking must be on free-to-air television.

It’s the GAA’s best way to promote the games. And, as it’s worth repeating for the GAA officials reading this, the purpose of the GAA is to promote the games.

In 2013, Dublin beat Kerry in the All-Ireland semi-final. It was the match in which Kerry scored 3 goals in the first 20 minutes, the Gooch delivered a masterclass and Kevin McManamon scored a belter at the end.

Played in glorious sunshine on an August weekend, I was at a funeral the following day. It might be the most upbeat funeral I have ever attended. 

Apart from the immediate family, the game had lifted everyone. It was the only thing people were talking about. 

And they weren’t talking about the result. They weren’t talking about the pundits. 

They were talking about the game. The were talking about the Gooch. They were talking about the skill, the excitement, the drama, the joy of a great match.

Dublin v Galway was put behind a paywall.

The Euros are on BBC and ITV.

And now, after reading this column, all you’re thinking about is Sean Cavanagh’s forehead instead of  that epic encounter between Dublin and Galway.

That’s what happens when you put profit before promotion.

Mícheál and the West Kerry way

The debate about Pat Spillane had kicked off good and proper and every journalist was having their say, except one.

Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh sat on a bar stool far from the madding crowd, sipping his soft drink and listening intently.

We were in Australia for the International Rules Series.

Back home, Pat Spillane had said something which had sparked another nationwide debate.

The discussion had crossed the globe to our hotel in Melbourne.

Most of us, myself included, were weighing in.

But Mícheál didn’t say anything.

That wasn’t his style.

He was the commentator who didn’t pass comment.

West Kerry and the wild Atlantic shore.

The heather on the coast.

He belonged to a different time, a different place.

He loved language.  He understood its power.

He also knew the value of silence.

When I sat beside him and tried to get him engaged, he batted me away, softly.

Instead, he told me a story.

“Let me to tell you about Pat Spillane,” started Mícheál in that celebrated and much loved lilt.

Mícheál told me that while Pat was Spillane by name, he was Lyne by nature.

His mother’s people, the Lynes, were a gifted family of footballers from Killarney. Six of the brothers played for Killarney Legion.

Mickey, Jackie, Denny and Teddy Lyne won All-Ireland medals with Kerry throughout the 1940s and 1950s.

They were ballers.

But, according to Mícheál, it wasn’t just the football which Pat inherited from his mother’s side.

This was the story he told me.

One day as Mickey Lyne was dandering up the street in Killarney he came across three Kerry men who naturally enough were talking football.

Mickey joined the conversation.

Not long into the chat, he dropped a grenade. 

In modern parlance, he triggered them.

What had been an amiable, friendly exchange suddenly exploded into a raging argument.

Having lit the fire, Mickey Lyne then quickly skipped away from the scene.

“As he was walking up the street with the shouts of the men ringing in his ears, he was smiling. That was Mickey Lyne,”

said Mícheál, letting me work the rest out for myself.

We were in Melbourne. But Mícheál was back in Kerry, thinking about Pat and his uncle Canon Mickey Lyne (he later served as chaplain for the Celtic football team).

Strangely, even before yesterday’s sad news, I had been thinking about that yarn.

In the aftermath of Derry’s defeats to Donegal, Armagh and Galway, a lot of opinions were expressed.

From a Derry perspective, it appeared to go beyond a post mortem.

It felt more like people were jumping on our grave.

In the true spirit of the Gael, the glee was evident.

The pros tried their best to disguise it.

The amateurs couldn’t.

The derision was intense and prolonged. It also came from all angles - both inside and outside the tent.

The lowest point came when Dick Clerkin chimed in too.

Monaghan?

I’ve always liked Monaghan. 

Tough, whole-hearted warriors who give everything they’ve got.

I thought the feelings were mutual.

Apparently not.

Dick put the boot in too.

Monaghan?

That was the closest I came to pulling out the laptop.

That’s when I thought about Mícheál

What was my tirade going to achieve?

Who would it benefit?

I’d only be putting more dung on the pile.

And God knows, there’s been enough dung shovelled in this year’s Championship.

When I thought about it, I decided:

You can be Mickey Lyne.

You can be one of the men he met on the street in Killarney.

Or, you can be like Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh. Sit back and tell a story.

So, for the week that’s in it, and with Derry meeting Kerry this weekend, it’s only fitting to honour the memory and legacy of the great man who has left us.

Dick can wait.

We deserve a better championship

The race director of the Giro D’Italia cried tears of joy when the Grand Tour came to Ireland a decade ago.

Italians love their cycling. Cycling is to Italy what the GAA is to Ireland. The sport is in their bloodstream.

The most venerated Italian sportsman of all time isn’t a footballer. He’s the cycling legend, Fausto Coppi, known nationally as Il Campionissimo - the champion of champions.

Foreign riders who move to Italy invariably fall in love with the Italian way of life and their way of cycling. 

In his autobiography, Domestique, British rider Charlier Weglius described how the start time of a local race in Italy will be choreographed so that the riders cross the finish line in the town square against the backdrop of a setting sun. 

In Italy, cycling is more than a sport. It’s art. It’s poetry. It’s drama. It’s cruel and brutal but beautiful too. It’s life - and they love it.

Yet, despite this deep-seated love affair with cycling, Italy’s racing showpiece, the Giro d’Italia, is in a sad and sorry state. Think Leinster football championship. 

That’s right. A total non-event.

Watching the three-week Grand Tour grind to its totally predictable conclusion last Sunday, I actually felt pangs of sympathy for the Italian nation. 

The Italians continue to create an incredible spectacle. They come out in their thousands to watch the race. Not only that, but their stunning villages and towns are often bedecked in an explosion of pink - the colour of the race leader’s maglia rosa jersey.

The Italians still put on a great race - only the race itself is complete pants.

Ninety-nine per cent of the best cyclists in the world don’t go anywhere near it. 

When a star does turn up, as Tadej Pogačar did this year, it automatically becomes a one-horse race.

If you think I’m exaggerating, consider the fact that the 38-year-old Geraint Thomas was the second favourite to win this year’s event. Geraint Thomas isn’t even the best rider in his own team.

As I spent the last three weeks contemplating the abject state of the Giro d’Italia, the thought also struck me that the exact same thing now applies to Gaelic football.

Football is the lifeblood of our country. No sport is bigger. No sport reaches as far and as deep. 

It’s our mother sport, the be all and end all. Nothing else comes close.

Yet, the state of the county game is pretty pathetic.

It has all become so flaccid and boring.

The National League is meaningless.

Three of the provincial championships are total snore-fests.

None of the provincial championships matter any more.

As for the so called secondary competitions. Never has the word ‘secondary’ been used so out of context.

When I turned my attention closer to home, the Giro d’Italia quickly started to appear in a much rosier light.

The tragedy is that the solution is abundantly obvious.

The secondary competitions need to get the chop. The provincial championships could be run off at the start of the year.

The National League is an old, blind, mangey, three-legged dog. Putting it to sleep would be an act of kindness. 

The solution is a league-based championship that is tiered so that only the top counties compete for the Sam Maguire Cup. 

This has to happen. The sooner the better.

We can’t keep running competitions which mean nothing.

As former Derry PRO, Gerry Donnelly famously told a reporter about the McKenna Cup. “Even the McKennas have stopped going to it”.

Gerry said that about 20 years ago.

But we still keep flogging these dead horses. 

The National Football League. 

Who the hell cares?

It doesn’t mean anything. 

And I say that as a man whose county won this year’s League.

Tadej Pogačar won this year’s Giro d’Italia by more than 9 minutes. After the first week, the race was over.

For the remaining fortnight, the drama and excitement was provided by the sub-plots and mini dramas, the breakaways and the sprints. 

Will Galway beat Mayo? Let’s go Wille Joe.

You know what I’m saying.

The All-Ireland Championship is depressingly similar.

For Pogačar, think Dublin.

Barring a serious, unexpected mishap, the Dubs will not be touched.

As for everyone else, we’re just chasing stage wins.

Which is fair enough, but the manner in which the race is run needs to change.

Like the Italians, we deserve better.

Both nations need an epic Grand Tour that finishes against the majestic backdrop of a setting sun.

PH

If you come for the GAA, you better not miss because Julius Augustus Burns will feed you to the lions.

In the long and glorious history of the Roman Empire, there were no more than half a dozen truly great emperors.

The success rate for Great GAA Presidents is something similar.

In the last 30 years, 12 men have been crowned An Uachtarán. 

Only one man out of those dozen could be classified as a Great GAA President.

That man was Peter Quinn.

Peter Quinn was a Great GAA President because he got something done. He had the vision, business acumen and political clout to get Croke Park redeveloped.

“Tom Ryan is an accountant. Not surprisingly Tom prefers to sit in his office crunching numbers. That might have been grand if Larry McCarthy had been a go-getter President. But Larry was content to hand out medals.”

At the time we quibbled and griped about the unearthly debt the Fermanagh man was going to foist on the Association. It cost about £100m. A good set of public toilets would cost about the same these days!

As a rule, GAA Presidents fall into two categories: 

1. those who want to do things,

2. those who don’t.

The Ceremonial Presidents are happy to go around the country, opening pitches, shaking hands and presenting medals. 

When the role of director-general was expanded into a more executive position, it was widely believed that all future presidents would retreat into the role of pitch-openers. 

Páraic Duffy fulfilled the role of a hands-on director-general. Leading from the front, taking the questions and outlining the GAA’s position on the issues of the day, he laid down an excellent example of how the job should be done.

But the current director-general, Tom Ryan has shown no appetite to follow in the footsteps of Páraic Duffy.

Tom Ryan is an accountant. Not surprisingly Tom prefers to sit in his office crunching numbers. That might have been grand if Larry McCarthy had been a go-getter President. But Larry was content to hand out medals.

So for the last three years we’ve had a director-general bunkered in his office and a GAA President who was nowhere to be seen.

To those of us on the outside looking in, it appeared that the GAA was being run by an emperor we never saw, and by a senate that was totally invisible.

Enter Julius Augustus Burns from Silverbridge in County Armagh.

In the few months since he has taken office, Emperor Burns has been a revitalising and energising force.

Even his presentation speeches at the National League finals were a joy to behold. 

With his passion and oratory skills, Jarlath turned a ceremony that we associate with boredom and cliche into an occasion to remember.

One of the most obvious things about Jarlath Burns is that he is a man with a tremendous capacity for love - and what Jarlath loves - he loves deeply.

His family, his place, his club, his county, his native language, the GAA - all these things mean everything to Jarlath.

And what Jarlath loves, he defends to the hilt.

It is this feature of his personality which has already set the new President apart from his most recent predecessors.

For many years the GAA has been an easy target. If you wanted to get an easy political headline, or play to the public gallery with a rabble-rousing soundbite, the GAA was low-hanging fruit.

The best bit for anyone taking these cheap shots was that there was never any fear of a reprisal from Croke Park. With such a reticent leadership, the GAA just became a great big punch bag.

Under Emperor Burns, things have changed.

If you are reading this column, I’m going to presume that you already know how Burns totally eviscerated the Taoiseach Simon Harris and Sean Cavanagh.

In an interview on the Clare Byrne Show, Burns didn’t just dismantle their remarks, he utterly demolished them. 

It was a victory in straight sets. Game, set and match. Fast, brutal and emphatic.

For purely vicarious pleasure, it was entertaining to see a GAA President adopt such a robust and aggressive position. 

On the playing field, Jarlath Burns was a beast of man. But like most good, big men, he truly understood his power and didn’t abuse it. If he did, he would have left a trail of opponents seriously wounded and maimed.

But in his role as the defender of the GAA, Burns is showing no such clemency. 

Nowadays, if you come for the GAA, you better not miss, because if you do, Julius Augustus Burns will feed you to the lions.

On the whole, this is a positive development for the GAA.

As the most important organisation in the country, it is good that the Association has a visible and vocal leader. 

That said, it’s important that Jarlath Burns doesn’t confuse defending the GAA’s position with what his job can really be.

Talk is cheap, but it takes a Great GAA President to get things done.

Burns has already stated that he has no intention of tampering with the chronically out-dated provincial Championship. That’s a pity, a mistake, and a debate for another day.

But there is so much more to be done. 

Casement Park is a starter.

It will be a long time before we know if Jarlath Burns will take his place among the Great GAA Presidents.

But as he embarks on his new reign, the Armagh man needs to understand that his three years will go past in the blink of an eye.

Even a month from now, few will remember what he said on some radio programme.

All that stuff is mostly piffle.

If Jarlath responds to every clown with an opinion, he is going to waste a lot of his precious time.

Peter Quinn didn’t give many interviews.

Caesar Quinn knew the score.

GAA Presidents are not remembered for what they said.

They are remembered for what they got done.

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Who wins when two teams park the bus?

The genesis for St Gall’s winning the All-Ireland title in 2010 came when Rory Gallagher sat down with Lenny Harbinson in the club’s carpark and laid out the tactical blueprint for how they should play.

Lenny had the good wit to recognise that the man in his passenger seat knew a lot more about tactics than he did.

That’s no sleight against Lenny Harbinson. Rory Gallagher knows more about football than most people.

It is absolutely no coincidence that the rope-a-dope, counter-attacking game pioneered by St Gall’s was then replicated by the Donegal team which Gallagher coached.

Like Lenny Harbinson, it seems that Jim McGuinness was smart enough to realise that in terms of tactics, Rory Gallagher was well ahead of the curve.

The combination of McGuinness and Gallagher was a management nirvana. McGuinness, the supreme motivator. Gallagher, the tactical wizard.

It delivered an All-Ireland title for Donegal.

Since returning to the Donegal fold, McGuinness has been showered with praise for his innovative coaching.

But the evidence doesn’t back this up.

In their two Championship displays against Derry and Tyrone, Donegal have done absolutely nothing new.

Donegal park the bus, soak up the pressure, and hit on the counter-attack.

It is 2012 revisited. There has been no real innovation.

Photo by cathalmcoscarphotography.com

The credit and acclaim that have followed Donegal’s wins has papered over some gaping cracks.

While Derry were flat, heavy-legged and a bit daft, they still managed to reel off 34 shots!

On their worst day, Derry still managed to rack up 0-17.

Tyrone looked at Derry’s horror-show and learned accordingly.

Despite the fact that the Red Hands are all over the shop, they just battened down the hatches and played Donegal at their own game.

And just by playing copy-cat, a patchwork Tyrone team nearly won.

Lacking any discernible tactical advantages this Donegal side will be pushed to the limit by Armagh.

That said, Donegal should still win though former captain Michael Murphy will not thank anyone who wants to position his county as the clear favourites.

In his role as BBC pundit and unofficial spokesperson for the county senior team, Murphy delivered a sound-bite that was more rehearsed than anything you’ll hear in the upcoming American election.

Speaking after Donegal’s win over Tyrone, Murphy said:

“Armagh are 10 years into their project while Donegal are just 10 months into theirs, so it will be interesting to see how it goes.”

While it’s understandable that Murphy is going to bat for his county, his attempts to present Donegal as the new kids on the blocks doesn’t stack up.

On Sunday, Donegal will be making their 11th appearance in an Ulster final since 2011. That’s 11 out of 14 finals.

Most of the players on the current squad collected winners’ medals in 2019.

Remove the propaganda, study the facts and you will see that Donegal are a seriously seasoned outfit.

In terms of morale, team-spirit and rock-solid belief, you’d imagine things are pretty buoyant in Donegal.

But what of Armagh?

Hmmmmm.

Earlier this year Kieran McGeeney raised a few eyebrows when he told journalists that expectations are always ludicrously high in his native county.

McGeeney said that every year Armagh’s fans expected to win the All-Ireland title.

Really? By this stage, after a decade under McGeeney, I’d say most Armagh fans would probably settle for a McKenna Cup.

This is not to say that McGeeney has done a terrible job. That would be untrue.

Armagh have some very good footballers and some good footballers - but they don’t have any exceptional footballers.

Given that talent at his disposal, McGeeney has produced a solid, committed and competent team.

However, they’ve had so many near misses, you would have to question just how much confidence Armagh will possess if Sunday’s final goes to the wire.

The Orchard men have become the Mayo of the North. They are constantly finding new ways to lose - and it takes something special to change that rut.

But there has been little to suggest that change is afoot. 

In their recent Division Two final against Donegal, the Orchard County led from the gate, put themselves into a strong position to win, then duly lost the match in the closing minutes.

It’s a pattern that is now all too familiar to the Orchard faithful.

Neither of these teams is going to win this year’s All-Ireland title so Sunday’s final will be as good as it gets.

It promises to be a close contest. 

McGeeney and McGuinness will have their men primed and ready. That’s their forte.

Neither manager is a tactical innovator so don’t expect anything new.

Donegal will park the bus and Armagh will park the bus.

McGuinness will have a plan to curb Rian O’Neill. 

McGeeney will deploy extra resources to limit Ryan McHugh and Paedar Mogan, Donegal’s two most influential players.

The focus will be on containment and sticking to the script. 

Jim McGuinness believes that the best system wins.

In a conversation with McGuinness, I once asked him what happens if two teams use the same system?

‘Then the team with the best players will win,” he said.

That’s where Donegal should have the edge over Armagh.

PH

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The best system wins

Photo by cathalmcoscarphotography.com

Twelve years is a long time to hold a grudge but Donegal manager Jim McGuinness clearly doesn’t think so.

Before attending this year’s press briefing for the Ulster Championship, McGuinness sent word to the organisers that he would not be speaking to the media if Declan Bogue was in attendance.

Bogue was the journalist who wrote the award-winning book, This Is Our Year.

Bogue’s crime was that his book contained interviews with Donegal’s star player Kevin Cassidy.

McGuinness famously refused to speak to Bogue at the press conference after his team’s All-Ireland victory in 2012.

But Bogue got off lightly. Kevin Cassidy got kicked off the squad, a long-serving and truly heroic footballer was thus denied an All-Ireland medal.

It was a sad, sorry and squalid affair, made all the more tragic because it was totally unnecessary.

Declan Bogue did nothing wrong. For that matter, neither did Kevin Cassidy. He didn’t give away any trade secrets. Moreover, This Is Our Year was published AFTER the 2011 Championship.

So why did Jim go so apoplectic?

Why did he deny one of the Donegal’s best ever players the chance to win an All-Ireland medal?

And why, 12 years later, is he black-balling a journalist whose only misdemeanour was to write a thoroughly engaging and readable book that doesn’t contain one negative word about McGuinness or his methods?

I believe I know the answer.

During Jim McGuinness’s first spell as Donegal manager, football was in a very different place.

Even some of the best teams in the country were tactically very naive.

Well, they were naive compared to Donegal.

McGuinness and his coach Rory Gallagher were light years ahead of the pack.

Donegal’s tactical supremacy gave them a considerable advantage.

Even though Donegal didn’t have the most gifted players in Ireland, their tactical brilliance allowed them to punch well above their weight. They were 6/1 outsiders when they beat Dublin in 2014!

Donegal’s system of play was the main reason they won the All-Ireland title in 2012.

McGuinness remains convinced that they could have won at least one more title if everyone in Donegal had played deaf and dumb.
McGuinness thought Kevin Cassidy let the cat out of the bag.

It’s a ridiculous reading of the situation - and that’s putting it mildly.

The truth is, the other counties got wise to Donegal’s rope-a-dope tactics and simply replicated them.

This was painfully illustrated in the 2014 final between Kerry and Donegal, one of the most boring All-Ireland deciders in history.

It was a tactical game of brinksmanship as both teams parked the proverbial bus.

Denied their tactical trump card, Donegal blinked first, and Kerry won.

When he was managing Donegal at that time, Jim McGuinness once said: “The best system wins.”

This explains why he was so tyrannical in his efforts to keep everything under wraps.

Here’s a classic example.

At that time our club organised a fund-raising bike ride to Donegal. We cycled to Downings, stayed the night, then returned the next day.

On the Sunday morning before heading back to Maghera, we realised that the Donegal senior squad were training at a nearby pitch.

One of our club members walked across the road to watch the session. (I kept eating my breakfast and stayed put).

As our football-loving clubman stood outside the perimeter fence, he was approached by a member of the Donegal management team who told him in no uncertain terms to go away! (The poor chap is still not right over it!)

But when your system is your advantage, you can understand why Jim McGuinness was so obsessed with keeping everything as secret as possible. That’s why even Sunday morning cyclists were treated as potential spies.

This perhaps explains why a man reportedly known to McGuinness was caught spying on a Kerry closed session which took place on the eve of the 2014 final. He was spotted hiding in a tree.

It also explains why Donegal's exiles in London have been asked to contribute to a proposed privacy fence for the county's training pitch in Convoy. The sole purpose of the eight-metre barrier is to keep out prying eyes. It will come at an estimated cost of 55,000 euro!

Systems can be expensive too!

All of which brings us back to The Shred.

While I totally disagree with Jim McGuinness’s appalling treatment of Declan Bogue and Kevin Cassidy, I do agree with him on one thing.

THE BEST SYSTEM WINS.

We saw that again on Saturday night in Celtic Park!

But winning systems don’t just relate to football.

It is equally pertinent to this business of getting leaner, fitter and stronger.

For example, you don’t change your body shape by jumping around the gym like an eejit.

You transform your body composition by following a weight training programme that includes the best lifts and incorporates progressive overload.

Similarly, you don’t lose weight by submitting yourself to an extreme diet which is totally unsustainable.

You lose weight by understanding the necessity of being in a calorie deficit. You need to have an awareness of portion size, calorie content, and you should pack your diet with quality, nutritious foods. This will allow you to lose weight in a healthy and sustainable manner.

While the best system can help you win Championships - it can also be the game-changer when it comes to getting lean, fit and strong.

Thank your lucky stars if you signed up to The Shred because we’ve got the best system - and the best system wins!

PH

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