[caption id="attachment_71503" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Mayo's Keith Higgins, left, and Colm O'Neill of Cork, do battle during the recent league final at Croke Park."]
In sport, perception is nine-tenths of the law. If we are told repeatedly that something is important we believe that it is. Rugby fans are delirious about the presence of two Irish provinces in the final of the Heineken Cup because the Irish media has persuaded them this is a big, huge deal. That the powerhouses of France and England regard this competition as rugby’s equivalent of soccer’s Europa League is never mentioned in dispatches. That would interfere with the perception and the exaggeration.
To put it in a language even the most arriviste of Irish alickadoos might understand, the French and English think of the Heineken with the same affection Munster, Ulster and Leinster reserve for the Rabo Pro Direct 12 Celtic Tigers Rucking tournament. The clash between the Ulster/Afrikaans select XV and the Leinster products of private schools XV (with the odd culchie and southern hemispherean thrown in) can be hyped as much as RTE radio wants, it still doesn’t change the facts.
Perception can work positively and negatively. The GAA’s approach to the National Leagues is the complete opposite and the fall-out from the football finals in Croke Park last weekend was absolutely bizarre. Another public relations disaster in terms of attendance and spectacle, the Cork team and management almost had to apologize for taking the second most important trophy available to them so seriously. Again, much of the hand-wringing about what is wrong with the league’s public image ignores some very obvious facts.
I’m not sure how it was in other counties but, growing up in Cork, the league was, from the earliest age, always regarded as a secondary competition. Every hurler and footballer knew this because it was repeatedly drummed into us that the championship was all that really mattered. Indeed, there were often seasons when the league final would take place early in the next calendar year. Players would have turned Under-15, but they’d be playing the allegedly second most important competition in the U-14 age group months after the semi-final, usually in deepest winter.
That’s how little the authorities cared about these competitions and that seeped into the consciousness of generations of players. A league was something to be tolerated but hardly cherished. A championship win was an event; a league win was not. No surprise then that generations of supporters don’t take the National League seriously at senior level and probably can never take it seriously at this point. The prejudice against it is too ingrained and deep.
Of course, the brouhaha about the Cork footballers’ triumph also raised the ugly question as to why this squad gets so little support from its own public. It has been ever thus. Diarmuid O’Donovan of this parish tells the story of watching his father’s great Cork team in 1973 playing before three men and a few umbrellas in the spring of that epic year. And you’ll guess where this is going. A few months later, the bus carrying these players and Sam Maguire turned off MacCurtain Street onto Bridge Street to find a sea of humanity spread before them. The city and county had packed the streets to welcome home the heroes.
It will be the same this September. At least we hope it will. Tens of thousands who may have only dipped in and out of the live coverage of Cork’s win over Mayo (probably tut-tutting about the ugliness of modern football as they did so) last Sunday will want tickets if this team makes it to the All-Ireland final later this year. Rugby can be castigated for the number of bandwagon-jumpers but every sport has them, big-game hunters who only come out on the brightest days.
There is snobbery afoot here too. There are clubs all over Cork where hurling takes precedence and Gaelic football is something that must be just put up with. Talking to a club official just the other week, he mentioned the need to get the football out of the way so it stopped interfering with the preparations of the hurlers ahead of the championship. None of this is news. This goes back to Christy Ring and his expressed desire to puncture every football in the eastern half of the county, a line beloved of hurling snobs. To be fair to them, the way the big ball is being played right now, they are entitled to look down their noses at it.
What is far more significant then about the Cork footballers winning their third league title in a row is it confirms the belief Counihan may be working with the most talented squad in the history of the county. Has any manager ever had so many options available to him at every position at the same time? With these kind of immense resources, is it unfair to point out Cork should be aspiring to three Sams in a row, not three leagues?
Yes, we know it’s getting harder and harder to win an All-Ireland, not to mention retain one but once the feelgood factor about last weekend wears off, there are pressing issues to address. Nobody remembers who won the league come September. Nobody. When the history books are written about football in this era, Cork cannot finish with one All-Ireland to its name. A solitary Sam is just not going to be enough of a yield from a squad with this type of ability.
“We are pleased because there are 31 teams out there that would love to be champions,” said Counihan in Croke Park. “We will enjoy tonight but we know the championship is a different ball game. But it’s important to enjoy the occasion, national titles are rare for Cork and we are very pleased to have three in a row. But last year we went out of here champions and the season didn’t go well after that. So the league was great to win but the reality is championship is a whole new ball game.”
Sounds like a man who knows the difference between perception and reality.
