Same as it ever was in GAA land

It’s back to the big ball this weekend, unless you’re down in Cork where the Fitzgibbon Cup will be decided in Cork IT’s impressive facilities. Congress will also take up a few column inches this weekend with the early staging of the All-Ireland finals one of the motions that will receive the greatest attention.

Moving the hurling and football finals back by around two weeks will hardly change the makeup of either code, nor will it contribute to lessening player burnout. The motion will be hotly contested and could even lose. Is it a good idea? Of course it is. And it should give clubs two extra weeks to get stuck into their championships. The clubs badly need that boost, although it does smack of a token gesture. What is really needed is significant reform of the county championships but the GAA doesn’t do sweeping changes, as we all know. I had to laugh when I read Babs Keating last week and his arguments against the earlier finals, his main one apparently being that people book holidays in August and having the All-Irelands then will affect them. It doesn’t come into effect until 2017, Babs. Is that not time enough to plan the holidays?

Congress can often be an exercise in clinging to traditions. Our teams are 15-a-side, goals are worth three points and the finals are played in September. Those are all often described as GAA traditions, but in reality they are merely 100-year-old rules and habits, brought in back then for many reasons, some of which are likely to have changed over the course of a century.

Back in 1925, my record books tell me that the All-Ireland hurling final was played in September. That’s 90 years of September finals. I wonder were there many booking their holidays for August back then?

The 15-a-side needs to be looked at in football in particular as the game is currently being strangled due mainly to the superior fitness levels of players who can play in the backs, midfield and forwards – all at the same time.

A four-point goal might bring the green flag back into vogue as well. It’s been worth three points since the 1800s apparently. That’s not on any agenda or GAA horizon right now. To diehards out there, yes, I know I can propose it for next year through my club. I just might.

I bring up goals because this weekend sees the third round of the National Football League after a two-week break. In the eight games played to date in the top division, we have seen 13 goals, about 1.5 goals per game. Only Cork have notched a green flag in both of their games.

Taking out the Donegal-Cork goal-fest (...) in Round 2 (2-14 to 1-7), there was only one other goal scored in the remaining three matches. The story is exactly the same in the second flight, with 13 goals in two rounds.

Goals win matches? We’re losing the sight of the net billowing, the rain being shook off it, the crowd rising and the roar that greets the umpire darting for the green flag. We need to bring that back. That won’t happen at Congress this weekend but perhaps the scribe’s curse will strike and we will see plenty of three-pointers in Croke Park, Ballybofey, Newry and Cork this weekend.

This week’s action

The pick of the games is probably the meeting of Donegal and Mayo on Sunday afternoon. TG4 think so because the live cameras will be on hand. We might tear ourselves away from the election coverage to catch a bit of that – it might be tasty. There hasn’t been any love lost between the sides in recent years, although with the departures of James Horan and Jim McGuinness that might be tempered a little. Mayo have had Donegal’s number in the championship in recent years but not the day that really mattered in 2012 and that must still grate with them. The Ulster side are top of the league and have been impressive to date; Mayo are rooted to the bottom with perennial underachievers Kerry.

Can you take serious pointers this early in the season? If so, then think about this: Donegal have already scored 13 points more than any other team in Division 1 (44) and they have also conceded the least (17). It must be Donegal this weekend.

The Dubs in Croke Park will get plenty from Monaghan on Saturday night. Both are also unbeaten to date, so something has to give. Remarkably, over the first two rounds of the entire national league, there has only been one draw. Perhaps this might be the second.

Speaking of the Kingdom, they travel all the way to Newry for a relegation battle with struggling Down (and nearly out). Kerry are misfiring but, as usual, they won’t be doing panic. The home side will be looking over their shoulder if they lose and Eamon Fitzmaurice won’t really want to lose three on the trot. That might start the whispering and I reckon Kerry will take Sunday seriously.

Roscommon have already made a success of their arrival in the rarefied atmosphere of Division 1 and they have had two weeks to savour their win in Killarney. But the games don’t get any easier: they play Cork in Pairc Uí Rinn on Sunday and will be back down to earth quickly.

Speaking of earth, I was in that stadium for the Cork-Waterford hurling match on Saturday night and I was highly impressed with the surface. Having watched Árd Scoil Rís and Templemore struggle in the Harty Final with their underfoot conditions in Nenagh, while the hurlers of Wexford and Clare did the same in Innovate Park, I’m wondering did Leeside get any of this winter at all?

Yes, three games of hurling in 24 hours in February. Lucky me. By the way, in those three matches there were only two goals scored and none of them from play. Maybe the goal famine is worse than we think. CL