Cumann Chat: Amateurism, old dogs and Seamus Coleman being a national treasure

The second A in GAA has global potential

FOR a long time I felt that growing the GAA outside Ireland wasn’t important. The Association is a cultural organisation, one that celebrates our Irish heritage and culture. Last week, Jamie Clarke was asked about growing the game globally, and he felt that it was possible if players were suitably remunerated. I saw another point, however. There is an aspect of the GAA that should be made global. For me, the greatest aspect of the GAA, the one thing that could make it global, is not the games. We can’t sell hurling and football outside Ireland because there are better catching games than football, and there are better stick games than hurling, but the one thing the GAA could promote is that second A, amateurism. What would heal other sports’ problems would be the grassroots amateur ethos. They are crying out for it, and the GAA can give them a model of how to achieve it.

RONAN SCOTT

Old dogs and new tricks

THERE is a fashion among those of us who believe ourselves to be enlightened that demands that we argue that the modern game is better than what has come before. Such an opinion is supported by old video footage of the catch and kick game from years gone by, when men hoofed the ball up the field without care for its ending destination. Indeed there are plenty of players who played the game back then who agree that their tactics weren’t great. But we should keep that tarring brush in its pot. Not all coaches are the same. I heard two stories in the past week that made me rethink my position. I was told that Art McRory, way back in the misty 1980s, was using basketball coaching styles to try and win the Red Hands an All-Ireland title. Similarly, lowly Antrim, back in the same decade, were managed by Eamon Grieve who played a rotational system used by the Tipperary hurlers in the past decade. Old dogs had the tricks first.

RONAN SCOTT

The legend of Killybegs

I WAS thinking about Seamus Coleman on Sunday night and how he must be one of the most popular Irish sports people in recent times. The Irish and Everton defender has a habit of donating large sums for charity fundraising drives online, never with any fanfare. You’ll be looking at the donations and see £20, £20, £15, £5,000 and on a number of occasions you’ll see Coleman’s name beside it. Another brownie point is that he has never forgotten his roots and takes in club and Donegal games whenever his schedule allows. He just seems an all-round good lad, and it’s interesting to wonder just how far he would have travelled if he had stuck to GAA.

NIALL MCCOY

Edging towards no season

WHILE the GAA will still put in place structures for possible action this year, it’s hard to escape the noises coming out over the last week. It seems, and maybe I’m being paranoid, that we are being geared up for an announcement that all action is off until 2021. This isn’t the Premier League, we don’t have the money to fund regular testing of our players all the time and there just seems to be too many hurdles to navigate. If club action comes back, even with no fans, no changing rooms, just the players – how will someone with a vulnerable relative at home feel about that?

NIALL MCCOY