On Gaelic Games:Sunday Game pundits are right to highlight fouls but are guilty of some inconsistency, writes SEÁN MORAN
WITH THE GAA's year - and certainly that of its correspondents - tapering to a conclusion it is inevitable that the ghosts of the previous 12 months flicker unsteadily before vanishing into history.
These fleeting epiphanies frequently come courtesy of the reports to annual convention from county secretaries up and down the country. Earlier this week Dublin's John Costello, as usual, raised a number of interesting points - including his well-reasoned reservations about the escalating intensity of the Féile competitions and call for their national review - about the 12 months past but his comments about RTÉ's Sunday Gamecommanded most of the media attention.
This year there was controversy over the apparent linkage between misbehaviour highlighted on the programme and investigations launched by Croke Park's Central Competitions Control Committee. Among these cases was that of Dublin's Colin Moran.
Costello's accusation is two-fold: that its pundits are setting the agenda for the GAA's national disciplinary process and that they do not do so on an impartial basis.
The first charge is disposable. If any foul play takes place during a televised match it is obviously going to come to the attention of the broadcast analysts before anyone else, including the Croke Park authorities. Does that make the action complained of any less serious or less appropriate for the authorities' attention? "Is a player only free from investigation when the Sunday Gamesays so?" asks Costello.
"Is it right that they trawl the video looking for issues and is it right that the CCCC respond to what they they're being told by the pundits?
"Games are played in real time, not slow-motion rerun where RTÉ want to show off their fancy gizmos! Trouble is, the players are the ones who suffer. By all means use the video but don't respond to every prompt from the Sunday Gamewho then see it as their role to dig out more examples of alleged skulduggery."
Given the constant sense that imposing discipline within the GAA is an edge-of-the-seats drama in which it's never clear whether the forces of order or disorder are going to win the struggle, you would imagine anything that assists in enforcing proper conduct on the field would be welcome.
In other words why wouldn't it be right that television pundits "trawl the video"? As for the CCCC, when they respond they do so to the foul play rather than to the instructions of whoever puts it on their desk (and the CCCC has denied that they take their prompts from the television).
As for the players suffering, many would feel that those with greatest cause to be aggrieved are footballers and hurlers on the receiving end of fouls, for which frequently no meaningful punishment is imposed either due to bad officiating on the field or poor judgement in committee rooms.
It's more likely that the Moran case will be remembered for different reasons than that it constituted some sort of compressed version of the Dreyfus affair.
The suspension was always a borderline call but those who held differing views held them vehemently.
Nonetheless the suspension imposed after video review only fell because of the Disputes Resolution Authority's most controversial determination: that the suspension "plainly and unambiguously flies in the face of reason and common sense, being the standard as set out by Mr Justice Henchy in The State (Keegan) v The Stardust Victims Compensation Tribunal".
The Henchy standard, seen in legal terms as setting the bar very high for the overturning of arbitration-tribunal findings where proper procedures have been followed, was applied despite the suspension having been endorsed all the way through the GAA's exhaustive disciplinary system and dividing opinion so sharply - either response hardly suggestive of irrationality.
Costello is on firmer ground with his assertion that the Sunday Game'spundits have been guilty of inconsistency and that " . . . the editorial line pursued by the Sunday Gamewas not the same when the native counties of some panellists were in action. In such circumstances we had panellists bobbing and weaving in order to douse any fallout rather than inflame it . . . "
There are two difficulties with former players analysing matches on RTÉ. For a start, some have for whatever reason - despite exemplary careers - a high tolerance for foul play or at least a tendency to be underwhelmed by it when it comes to their own county. Secondly, the broadcaster's policy of placing former players on panels when their own counties are playing flies - to borrow a phrase - in the face of reason.
How for instance does a former player sit in on the Sunday Gameand judge that some player from his local club should be suspended - when he has to go home that night and live there until the next match?
And Costello is of course correct: if the television pundits overlook foul play the CCCC must act swiftly of their own accord.
There is a passage in the report about how despite criticism the Dublin County Board stuck by Moran because they, like the team management and the player himself, didn't believe that the foul on Westmeath's Dermot Bannon merited a red card.
On that basis Costello rejects criticism of the county's decision to pursue vindication to the end. It would be difficult to get too worked up over this given the close call involved were it an isolated incident. But Dublin have also pursued and - due to some poor decision making in certain cases - obtained remedies in far more clear-cut cases.
This isn't a specifically Dublin trait. Nearly all counties will happily push the GAA's due processes all the way to Saigon if there's a chance of freeing players for big matches.
It's maybe a distant galaxy but is it possible that counties could ever transcend their local allegiances in favour of a greater loyalty, to the games and the imperative that they are played in the right spirit - as to be fair, Dublin and Dublin players themselves have done in the past?
