IF the GAA was a publicly-quoted entity its shares would be riding high right now. The company has had an exceptional year, rounded off by two wonderful All-Ireland finals, while the ladies’ games are setting crowd records of their own.

The Super 8s are on the horizon, possibly in hurling too. We are on the cusp of more games, more excitement and dare we say it, more money.

But that’s not entirely a bad thing because every penny the GAA makes is reinvested in our games up and down the country. Next time you give out about the Grab All Association I will guarantee you that within five miles of where you’re complaining sits an active GAA facility funded by the association with some of the cold hard €80 you paid for your All-Ireland final ticket.

That’s where the GAA ticket and Sky money goes. It does not go to pay for the high profile coach your club are after drafting in at the cost of €100 per training session. No, that’s down to yourselves.

The GAA do pay to keep the organisation in proper working order but we shouldn’t quibble about that. We get value for money.

This is the GAA folks and in truth they are like a publicly-listed company because we are all the shareholders, we all have a stake. Such an ownership model makes for diverse views and even more diverse actions.

Dinner

In short, you just never know what’s around the corner.

In this instance it’s the Gooch.

A remarkable player, it has been announced he is to be given a testimonial dinner to mark his inter-county retirement, which is now more than a year old.

It is an unusual move and one that until now was alien to the GAA. One wonders who came up with the idea. It almost smells of a test case because it has been well flagged that Cooper himself will personally benefit from the corporate event (along with two charities).

There has been no attempt to conceal this fact and that is most un-GAA like because although we have been raising money specifically for people under various guises for years now, there was almost always some element of cover around it. There isn’t any here.

There can be little doubt that others will follow Cooper if, as we anticipate, his night is a very successful one. How many recently retired Kilkenny hurlers will be thinking about a golden handshake?

Is there not a few players in every county deserving of such a night? Henry Shefflin? Eoin Kelly? Sean Cavanagh? Cora Staunton? Take your pick, it’s a long list.

In Clare we could go through all of the 1995 and 1997 All-Ireland winning teams before we even get to 2013. I’d be out every night of the week!

How would a surfeit of such corporate nights affect our relationship with these retired players? How long before supporters, corporate or otherwise, would grow weary of the next testimonial dinner?

How long before we are the very same as rugby and soccer, who are veterans of this after-dinner circuit, with ex-players making a living telling the same stories and tired jokes to the same people?

Only the thing about GAA people is that we are supposed to be immune to those contrivances. I could see us starting down the road here.

Good luck to Colm Cooper, one of the most gifted forwards to play the game. Good luck too to those who will support him on his night.

But after this can we go back to the old ways? Some of them are still best.

World Cup Fever

The biggest sporting story happening right now in this country is probably happening outside it. I refer of course to our bid for the 2023 Rugby World Cup, which was formally delivered this week by a host of high profile representatives, not least Taoiseach Leo Varadkar.

Fair play to Leo, he is quite literally putting on the green shirt, or in this case the green tie.

Our bid is a couple of years on the road now, chaired by former Tanaiste and Irish international, Dick Spring. Behind him are an army of IRFU heads who have clearly gotten our house in order ahead of the vote on 15 November.

Right now we are favourites to win the bidding process having been studiously doing our homework both domestically and externally, where we are hopefully racking up the endorsements from countries entitled to vote on the monumental decision.

On Hallowe’en night the World Rugby Council will report on their evaluation for the 2023 tournament and make a recommendation. It is between ourselves and South Africa, with France considered the outsiders of the three bidders.

I place great faith in the bookies on this occasion – they have Ireland the warmest of favourites to land this prize, and what a prize it would be. Easily the largest sporting event of any kind to be ever hosted on these shores, it would transform our sporting and hospitality infrastructure.

We can always do with those upgrades.

Most of the hard work is done now and those charged with putting this bid together can take much satisfaction in the professional manner in which it has been assembled.

The partnerships involved have stretched from different governments to the IRFU’s most natural of bedfellows, the GAA. The seamless cohesion of those various strands is in stark contrast to the French and South African bids. There hasn’t been so much as a murmur of discontent anywhere here about the prospect of hosting such a gigantic event. That should be noted.

Let’s hope it all pays off.

We are ready to take the next sporting step on this island and hosting the 2023 Rugby World Cup, and perhaps as exciting, preparing to host the event, would finally turn a brighter page in this country’s recent history.