Cumann Chat: Discipline, Paul Mannion and GAA in the community

Disciplined teams are winning teams

Raymond Munroe told Gaelic Life in a recent article that he was inspired by the advice from Mickey Moran about successful teams. Munroe said that Moran told him, ‘disciplined teams, are winning teams.’

Another piece in last week’s paper saw Kevin Madden explain that in 1996 Henry Downey told him that his decision to lash out in the MacRory Cup final was an act of giving up. The decision that he had made meant that the team could no longer win the match.

One of the great players of the game was Greg Blaney. John Lynch said that Blaney was impervious to sledging, and Lynch would know. lynch said Blaney played the game as if no one is around him. He achieved a serenity when playing that improved his game.

Temperament and discipline are possibly as important as being able to catch and kick.

RONAN SCOTT

Mannion deserves a bit more credit

RECENTLY Sky Sports had a poll on the top 16 forwards in Ireland, Paul Mannion didn’t make the cut. On Monday Sportsjoe asked who would you rather in your team, Mannion or Pádraic Joyce and the abuse they got back was fairly forceful. For the record, Joyce was one of my favourite players and gets the nod but I don’t know if the gap is as big as being made out. Joyce won two All-Ireland’s and two All-Stars while Mannion, at the age of 26, has five All-Ireland’s and three All-Stars. Maybe Mannion suffers because he seems to be a master of all aspects of the game, but we are looking at a star.

NIALL MCCOY

GAA is community

I’VE been catching up on Netflix during lockdown, and one of my favourite shows at the moment is Last Chance U. This is a sports documentary about community colleges in America, and the competitive American Football Leagues of which they are a part of. Many of the players who are these colleges are from broken homes and troubled backgrounds. They have not been able to make it into bigger universities, but see the community college as a way to bring them to the attention of bigger organisations. There is so much great material in these shows that is of interest to those of us who are students of sports. One of those is the American ideal of professional sports as a means of bettering oneself. Kids from the worst neighbourhoods see sport as their way out. On one hand it is inspirational, but on the other hand, these kids have unrealistic goals and are using sport selfishly. It makes me think that desite all the GAA’s faults in fixtures and such, we still have not lost the understanding that sport is about community.

RONAN SCOTT

Corofin’s loss would be a shame

MORE reports emerged over the weekend that the Ulster and All-Ireland Club competitions could be scrapped to accommodate the county game – something that would fit in with Gaelic Life’s report a few weeks ago that the GAA are considering November 21 All-Ireland finals. This current Corofin team are the greatest to ever play the game, that is widely accepted, and their win over Kilcoo earlier this year was their third All-Ireland title in-a-row. It would be a shame that their winning run would be ended by something out of their hands. They could still win four in-a-row in 2022 of course, but that’s a long way away and a lot could have changed.

NIALL MCCOY