Media issues may have set alarm bells ringing

Gaelic Games: A Galway man justly famed for his pungent opinions was lamenting last week's messy impasse in the appointment of a county hurling manager, writes Seán Moran.

"We always seem to set our heroes at each other's throats," he said of the process whereby distinguished former hurlers end up in different prospective management camps, all battling for the top position.

He will have been a little gratified by the Galway hurling board's reluctance to treat Conor Hayes to the by now traditional shafting after two years. There was some glimmer of old decency about this reticence even on the sentimental grounds that Hayes had twice lifted the Liam MacCarthy after those iconic, albeit increasingly distant, finals of 1987 and '88.

Over on the eastern seaboard Dublin stood accused of borrowing Galway's worst habits while ignoring its most appealing practices.

It's hard to think of a more compelling figure than Brian Mullins in Dublin football. From his emergence as a teenage centrefielder in the county's All-Ireland success of 30 years ago, he has always projected an intense commitment to the game and especially the county.

It's nearly three months since Tommy Lyons stepped down as manager of the Dublin footballers. The county officers' lethargy in appointing a successor has been contrasted with the Galway football board, which installed Peter Ford within a few weeks of John O'Mahony's departure.

The comparison, however, is superficial. Peter Ford was on the spot, teaching in Galway. He is a highly regarded coach both at club and county level and enjoyed some notable coups in his spell with Sligo, climaxing with the county's narrow defeat after a replay to eventual All-Ireland champions Armagh in 2002.

For all that Mullins is a very imposing presence, who throughout a playing career that earned four All-Irelands demonstrated tremendous leadership qualities, there were obviously reservations about appointing him.

His record managing Derry for three years was at worst mixed and hardly merited a veto on Mullins's wish to manage Dublin. So why was there such reticence to give him a chance? The points of divergence outlined at the weekend don't shed an awful lot of light on the situation.

It's hard to see what the problem was with the sports science procedures as proposed by Mullins and had they been put forward by a different manager, it's likely that they would have been accepted without demur.

In any event the issue is something of a red herring.

Dublin didn't lose last summer's championship matches because of lack of fitness nor is it likely to be a factor in any disappointments next season.

Similarly the argument over the best time to launch a training camp in Spain hardly constituted a stand-off with the county board accepting the idea in principle but disagreeing with the timing.

In a way what was on the face of it the least remarkable requirement of Mullins's proposals may have been the most alarming for the county executive. The retention of PR agencies to handle media relations was presented positively as "some attempt made to professionalise the media and PR issue".

This was to grant Mullins full control of media policy in respect of the team, a policy he wanted implemented by outside PR agencies. Although he didn't elaborate during his only interview on the matter, with RTÉ Radio, the implication was that PR operatives would be the only channels of communication. In other words, selectors wouldn't be free to talk on behalf of the team.

There is no doubt that media interaction is a big imposition on any intercounty manager but it is part of the territory and opinions vary on how tolerable or intolerable the burden is.

Interestingly the most recent Dublin manager, Tommy Lyons, in an interview with the Irish Independent endorsed Mullins's media plan.

There is, however, a reasonable suspicion in the case of both Mullins and Lyons that their desire to get the media at arm's length is motivated by personal issues as much as the irrefutable requirements of best practice.

The last three All-Ireland winning football managers, Jack O'Connor, Mickey Harte and Joe Kernan, have been freely contactable by media, even to the point of returning calls. That is obviously their view of best practice and all of them have impressed with their attention to the detail of team preparation.

It is frequently maintained that Dublin is more pressurised because of the scale of media interest.

But the last manager to bring the All-Ireland back to the county, Dr Pat O'Neill, has questioned this.

"That shouldn't interfere with the practical running of a team. It's a factor out there, but it doesn't influence the way you prepare and coach a side. It shouldn't interfere with the science of football and developing teams."

O'Neill's tenure ended nine years ago and it could be argued that media interest has since grown exponentially. But in fact there are fewer national titles because of the demise of the Irish Press Group, which was a major outlet for GAA coverage.

Furthermore, Dublin has little in the way of an interested local broadcast media (with the honourable exception of Newstalk 106) and the focus of the national newspapers moves on as competitions unfold.

From the above it can be seen that media isn't so great an issue in most counties and managers as to warrant a professional public relations apparatus.

Mullins's suggestion did, however, reflect his own view of media, which is one of distrust and dislike.

That's his own business but managing a county team - acknowledged as the shop window of the games - brings with it promotional obligations and some of those, like it or not, are discharged through media outlets.

It is tempting to see Mullins as a Coriolanus figure, a man of action driven beyond endurance by the Byzantine intricacies of political intrigue. The need to relate to the crowd demands different qualities than those that fired the warrior instinct on the field.

That such an apparently irrelevant flaw has stymied the ambitions of an icon like Mullins is in its own way a sporting tragedy. But like all tragedies its unfolding was inevitable.