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Malachy Clerkin: Digging through the rubble of the end of the Vera Pauw era

Karen Duggan, Dave Hannigan and Ciarán Murphy are all on top form in their columns in the sports section today

The fall-out from the FAI’s decision not to extend Vera Pauw’s contract on Tuesday night is still the main story around the Irish sports scene today. Photograph: Ryan Byrne/Inpho

Malachy Clerkin's face
Malachy Clerkin
Thu Aug 31 2023 - 10:06

The fall-out from the FAI’s decision not to extend Vera Pauw’s contract on Tuesday night is still the main story around the Irish sports scene today. Karen Duggan’s column this morning goes to the heart of the matter – “Logic dictated a change of manager. There was far too much non-football noise around Pauw.” It really had become that simple.

Gavin Cummiskey has been digging through the rubble since the decision was made and though nobody in the FAI or the World Cup squad is prepared to go on the record yet, he has found a few nuggets of explanation as to why the Pauw era has come to an end. “The FAI concluded that a modern international manager should not control all aspects of camp life, from the warm-up to training to the medical department to diet, and especially Pauw’s strict adherence to football periodisation and her overemphasis on the team operating a defensive shape that felt increasingly outdated during the tournament.”

It’s the first day of the Irish Women’s Open golf tournament in Dromoland Castle today and while Philip Reid’s preview leaves you in no doubt who the star attraction is, the class of the batch of young Irish golfers coming up behind Leona Maguire would make anyone excited for the future. “Their quality is obvious,” Philip writes. “Áine Donegan, for one, impressed hugely when competing in the US Women’s Open at Pebble Beach. She is 21 and a business student at Louisiana State University. Beth Coulter is 19, and a student at Arizona State. This is her first taste of playing in a professional tournament but won’t be her last. [Sara] Byrne is 22 and studying finance at Miami University.”

Staying on golf (sort of), Dave Hannigan’s column today takes Donald Trump’s latest barefaced lie – he apparently shot a 67 at his club in Bedminster last week – and spins it out into a tale as old as time. “For the average American male, braggadocio often comes as standard and lying about sporting achievements, especially those in their youth, is woven into their DNA... Paunchy Walter Mittys spinning spurious yarns about imaginary brushes with sporting greatness are as plentiful around here as former presidents falsifying golf scores.”

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Nobody would mistake Ciarán Murphy for a paunchy anything, least of all a Walter Mitty, but our columnist had his own brush with mortality last week, when an injury in a club GAA match led to a trip for an x-ray. “There’s no doubt that sport has accounted for quite a few ruined Sunday afternoons in this place today. I wonder do the doctors and nurses here see a glut of sports injuries every Sunday afternoon at about 2.30pm and nudge each other conspiratorially: ‘Here come the idiots.’”

Finally, in Gaelic games, Gordon Manning has a fascinating chat with Waterford football manager Ephie Fitzgerald on life at the coalface of the intercounty game. One of the areas covered was the astronomical cost it takes to run a county team, even one as lowly as the Waterford footballers. “I was taking mileage, that’s what I was getting and I was happy enough with that. But it’s more or less €400,000 a year to run an intercounty team, and that’s for the likes of Waterford,” Fitzgerald says.

On Telly: Irish Women’s Open (Sky Sports Golf, 5.30).