On Gaelic Games:So we're off. The season is upon us and already the first really big contest - one with undeniably serious consequences for the loser if it goes wrong - is shaping up, writes Seán Moran
More acute readers will have detected from the laboured ambiguity of the above paragraph that I'm obviously not referring to a championship encounter on the horizon - for all that Mayo are already in that category, Donegal narrowly avoided it and Dublin will be hoping to stay clear of it this weekend.
The big event in question is the follow-up to last Sunday's outbreak of heedless indiscipline in Thurles - not forgetting similar scenes in a slightly lower key at Tullamore before the Offaly-Laois match.
It didn't help that the flashpoint was engineered by the teams coming out of the tunnel at the same time, but whatever the sins of commission and omission involved in that, the idea that two teams can't run on to the pitch without resisting the temptation to dunt and dig each other is a telling illustration of the culture of confrontation and disregard for restraint that the GAA has been trying to address for a number of years at this stage.
None of this is specific to Cork or Clare - although it was a neat coincidence that the last time Gerald McCarthy managed a team against Clare all of nine years ago was the notorious Munster Clare-Waterford replay, replete with investigations, court case and three slanderous priests - but it just so happens that these are the two counties that get to test drive the latest model in the troubled line of GAA disciplinary systems.
Initial signs are encouraging. Jimmy Dunne, chair of the Competitions Control Committee, was forthright about the need to investigate these events and admirably swift in setting in motion the necessary procedures.
Under these new protocols the CCC will investigate and recommend penalties. In the (likely) case that parties affected don't accept the punishment and want personal hearings, the matter goes straight to the Central Hearings Committee, which will hear the matter. This allows the CCC to present the case in favour of whatever action has been taken, argue it out with the representatives of those sanctioned and let the CHC decide.
It's not just procedurally that the area of discipline has been tightened up. Under Rule 143 of this year's Official Guide there are also new offences - or infractions as we now less severely term them - that make the type of behaviour seen in Thurles easier to deal with.
It's little over a year since the ridiculous scenes that became known, rather grandiosely, as The Battle of Omagh went virtually unpunished and the predictably permissive groundswell that the events triggered included some, principally Tyrone manager Mickey Harte, taking issue with the charge of "discrediting the association" - presumably because those brawling around the field take a personal pride in being a credit to the GAA. For all that the charge might have been justified, it was an unwieldy way to do business and the rules have now been altered.
Rule 143 (b) Category II schedules a number of infractions that most relevantly include at the end of a long list - "contributing to a melee". A quick look through the video evidence is going to place a good few players in that category.
As important as punishing what happened is sending out a message that the new system works and that similar transgressions can expect the same treatment because over the past four years the perception that the GAA is incapable of dealing firmly with indiscipline has been more damaging than the incidents that have led to such conclusions.
There is a subtext to all of this and that is the involvement of Cork players. There is within the association resentment that players from that county are less answerable to the disciplinary process than others. That perception - the consequence of some poor decisions by committees - can't be allowed to continue.
It would help, of course, if Cork weren't always so relentless in pursuit of escape clauses for their players, whatever their misdemeanours or infractions.
As GAA Director General Liam Mulvihill pointed out in his annual report last March: "It's extremely disappointing that we have had cases of senior county officials attempting to locate the tiniest loophole in our procedures so that they could get a player off a charge. The idea that county officers, who themselves are charged with administering the disciplinary system for their own club units, should then use every avenue to enable a county player to escape on a technicality is bizarre."
The CCC is, however, a heavyweight collective, containing as it does the four provincial secretaries. You'd have to be hopeful that they will reach a fair and firm conclusion, uninfluenced by specious technicalities.
Greater uncertainty, however, enters the equation at the certain prospect of the whole matter going to the Hearings Committee who have yet to prove themselves as robust under pressure as some of the GAA's top administrators on the CCC.
Disorder and indiscipline are endemic in Gaelic games. It's not that there's weekly hooliganism on the playing fields, but whenever rules are disregarded, you can guarantee a chorus of special pleading as soon as the prospect of appropriate deterrent appears.
It's no exaggeration to say that Croke Park will be in despair if the new disciplinary framework proves incapable of dealing swiftly and fairly with situations such as last Sunday's.
There's a lot to play for in the next few days.
