SEÁN MORAN ON GAELIC GAMES: Mickey Harte's opinion that the scouting represented "a threat to what the GAA stands for" sounded overstated

THE PLIGHT of players continues to make the news. This morning the GAA will unveil their response to the Gaelic Players Association’s (GPA) campaign of action in furtherance of their claims for recognition by Croke Park and more importantly the attendant funding requirements.

Parameters are well defined in all of this: the association is amateur and therefore the amount of autonomy and funding must reflect that fact. Within those limits movement is possible and likely in the weeks ahead.

Neither the GPA nor Croke Park will be best served by a lengthy stand-off. The GAA has grown heartily sick of all of the player-related controversies that have broken out in the past couple of years from the Cork wars through the players’ grants scheme and on to the current impasse.

For their part the GPA need to be taken under the organisational umbrella because there’s a limited future, particularly in recession, in trying to keep the show on the road with declining levels of guaranteed sponsorship income.

A more familiar plight was on show last week, as Monaghan footballer Tommy Freeman struggled to escape the provisions of the rule book for his attempted head-butt in May’s Ulster championship match against Derry. With the sort of irony the GAA specialises in, the counties line out in Saturday’s qualifier with the dust still not settled on the mean-spirited clash. The bottom line is Derry will have Fergal Doherty and Brian Mullan available after their misbehaviour but Freeman will remain suspended. This may appear harsh given the head-butt didn’t connect but attempts to commit fouls have to be punishable even if it appears anomalous that an actual blow of the knee into a sensitive part of the male anatomy should attract merely half the minimum punishment of eight weeks.

(More curiously it now seems impossible to hand down anything in excess of a minimum suspension no matter what the circumstances. It was because of this Doherty and Mullan received half the suspensions the CCCC had originally recommended – a similar reduction occurred in last year’s Paul Galvin case.)

By coincidence one of the most famous attempted head-butts 14 years ago resulted in Dublin’s Charlie Redmond being sent off in the 1995 All-Ireland final. The intended target was none other than Fergal Logan, the Tyrone footballer who nowadays is better known as the solicitor everyone looks for when taking a suspension to the GAA’s independent arbitration service, the Disputes Resolution Authority. Logan wasn’t acting for Freeman in last week’s case, which never got off the runway at the DRA.

Monaghan aren’t alone in being willing to push the clearest-cut suspensions all the way to arbitration if necessary on the off-chance that there will be a pay-out. There are many other counties who happily do the same even those who, like Tyrone, maintain a consistently confrontational attitude towards the GPA, which after all is the representative body of the same players they move mountains to help to avoid suspension.

Tyrone was also well represented in Sunday’s first episode of The Oz Factor. County manager Mickey Harte and broadcaster Tom McGurk both took their turn shaking heads at the attentions being lavished on young footballers by Australian agent Ricky Nixon. Nixon, who has signed up five AFL clubs (Brisbane, North Melbourne, Richmond, Geelong and St Kilda) for his programme of referrals of promising young talent from Ireland, is the central character in the series and he could be seen chuckling with one of the club reps about how they’re seen as “The Pied Piper of Hamelin” and “the child catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang”.

Despite Nixon’s arrival in Ireland to conduct his camps being portrayed as something of a Manichean struggle with the GAA, no one from Croke Park was interviewed about the process, which was presented as a mortal threat to Gaelic games. Harte and McGurk made reasonable comments about the place of the GAA in society and how money shouldn’t mean everything but Harte’s opinion that the scouting represented “a threat to what the GAA stands for”, although in keeping with his distaste for the Australian game, sounded overstated given the levels of actual recruitment.

Of the youngsters who signed up for the camp (from a list of over 100 initially furnished to Nixon), which took place a year ago, only Conor Meredith from Laois is currently on the books of an AFL club, on the North Melbourne Kangaroos’ rookie list. A number have made arrangements with clubs for next season, not all as part of Nixon’s programme, but for all of the upset caused to a county like Mayo or Down when they lose an outstanding talent like Pierce Hanley or Martin Clarke, the overall impact is negligible.

Just four Irish players feature on the senior lists of AFL clubs: Setanta Ó hAilpín (Cork and Carlton), Hanley (Brisbane), Clarke (Collingwood) and Colm Begley (Laois and St Kilda). Since the great success of Tadhg Kennelly in adapting no other player from Ireland has so far got close to that level of attainment. After a few seasons in which Irish players appeared to adapt far more quickly to the demands of the AFL, there is evidence maintaining that form has proved difficult with Begley, who broke into the Brisbane side in record time three years ago, having been delisted and moved to St Kilda and Clarke not holding the same stellar trajectory he established in his first year at Collingwood.

There are a further five on this season’s rookie lists besides Meredith: Kevin Dyas (Armagh and Collingwood), Michael Quinn (Longford and Essendon), Brendan Murphy (Carlow and Sydney Swans) and Kyle Coney (Tyrone and Sydney) even though the latter never returned to Australia after his Christmas break. Despite reports that Antrim’s Niall McKeever is to receive around €35,000 per annum for his international rookie contract next season the going rate for such deals is a good €10,000 lower than that.

There’s no doubting the appeal of climate and a possible professional sports career but as a magnet for young talent? As a Croke Park source said of the recruitment issue: “There were meetings about it with Andrew Demetriou (AFL chief executive) in January but to be honest in terms of player issues we’ve had more pressing things to do in the meantime.” Hard to argue with that.