It's getting to a sorry stage when not even the promise of a sumptuous feed in Langton's can tempt a man to a Kilkenny press night. Three years running, the county has organised its media event and unveiled decreasing numbers of hurlers. They have lost the last two All-Irelands. Yet this year, with the need to do something different presumably uppermost in their minds, they still haven't been able to wean themselves off the crippling shyness that has been, as much as defeat, a feature of recent years.
There is a feeling abroad that the county was too confident last year, that the media lost the run of themselves. Consequently local radio has been asked to tone it down this year. Given the pitiful access of 12 months ago, there was no great scope for the national media to tone it down but just to make sure, only five Kilkenny players made themselves available last Monday week.
The following night, Offaly trumped Kilkenny by sending over only three firstteam players to their media night. Suggestions that this was an impromptu response to the low turnout in Kilkenny aren't entirely convincing. It had been insisted all along that interviews would take place in the GAA centre in Tullamore, across the road from O'Connor Park.
It is of course important to acknowledge the difference between this pursuit and more cutting-edge journalism. Investigative reporters don't expect all relevant sources to be rounded up in a room where they can be interviewed. Then again, players generally haven't done anything wrong. There's no great duty involved in playing for an inter-county team. But there is a vast public interest in the activities of hurlers and footballers throughout the championship. The newspapers and broadcasters are simply a media through which teams and players are brought to the wider community.
In what remains - just about - an amateur sports organisation, there is of course no enforceable duty to communicate with that public. It is, however, ironic that sports that have built their great strength and appeal on the link with the community are now at the highest levels frequently to be found wilfully ignoring that public. It is equally ironic that at a stage when the right of players to exploit their celebrity has been accepted, those players are becoming increasingly publicity shy.
At present it should be up to individual players whether or not they want to talk to reporters. Some don't and that's fine. Some even do you the courtesy of explaining as much and that's even better. Some, however, don't mind doing interviews and co-operate with the media. Or would if their managers let them.
That's as much an infringement of players' rights as individuals as demanding they make themselves unavailable when they don't want to. This year has seen players - from more than one county - ignore management stricture and give interviews away from the controlled zone in which they are increasingly stipulated. But it has been an anxious business for these players, an anxiety for which management teams are entirely responsible.
Players in general are not to blame for the excesses of this policy. Only two years ago, Offaly players were relaxed and accessible at their All-Ireland media night. The players are nearly all the same; it's only the management that has changed.
Behind all the intensified preparations routinely undertaken by top inter-county panels, the application of science and the attention to smallest details lurks a sleeveen irrationality about the nature of media coverage. Some players are twice shy after having innocuous interviews twisted and distorted into great tub-thumping polemics by dressing-room Goebbels in search of a prop for their pre-match oratory.
One manager has said that he knew Cork's Sean McGrath would play badly against Offaly as soon as he saw the player's big interview in the Sunday Independent. He ignored the fact that on the facing page, Offaly's Johnny Pilkington was featured and yet went on to score four points from play.
There is still a primitive attraction to the dubious powers of negative motivation. The opposition are arrogant/laughing at us/taking us for granted. Everyone's writing us off. Nobody's showing us enough respect. And . . . and . . . and. It is little wonder in this neurotic environment that some players feel obliged to measure and weigh words as if they were phials of nitro-glycerine.
Equally primitive is the impulse to secrecy. Despite all the evidence that the more open a team is in its media dealings, the better it does in All-Ireland finals, there is great reluctance to follow the positive precedent and a preference for the obstructionist example of Kilkenny and Kerry.
Inherent in this approach is an inequity. Within the panel, it leads to wildly disproportionate burdens. D J Carey as well as having to conjure goals on the field, must give about 40 interviews before every All-Ireland - partly because of his eminence but largely because his most of his team mates refuse to share that burden.
He may willingly take the strain but maybe Kilkenny's management would be better off sparing their star player so much distraction rather than allowing most of their other players to zip up their chops completely.
One manager who has faced Kilkenny within the last two years complained that a dozen of his players were doing interviews while Kilkenny kept their heads down and that this led to an unfair spotlight on his team. He was somewhat mistaken because papers try to observe parity in terms of coverage regardless of access.
And that's the one inescapable fact at this time of the year. Newspapers are driven by the interests of their readers rather than by the neurotic whims of team managements. So with or without co-operation, the beat goes on.
