Sarsfields Newsletter

SFL Sarsfields 0-9 Ellistown 1-6

Ellistown: Alan Melia. Chris Kelly, Gavin Dempsey, Colm Conroy, Enda Noone, Colm Donnelly, Tom O’Loughlin, Phillip Hennessey, Aidan Leonard (0-1) Leslie Kelly (0-3) Andrew Dempsey (1-0) Pauric Kelly (0-1) Anthony Hennessy Andy O’Neill. Subs  Paidir McDermott for Andy O’Neill (42)Peter Houlihan Anthony Hennessey(inj 42 mins)

Sarsfields:Gavin Slicker, Ciaran Carey,, Robert Murphy, Conor Duffy, Niall Hedderman, John Kavanagh, Robbie Confrey, Murt Dunne, Ciaran Dempsey(0-2), Aidan McLernan,  Eoin O’Sullivan, Keith Harvey (01) (Conor Tiernan (0-1) Paddy Cambell(0-2) ) John Geraghty. Subs: Niall Fortune (0-1) for Paddy Cambell (injured 27mins) Keith Brown(0-1) for John Geraghty  (0-1)(48mins) Stevie Ussher for Robbie Confrey (50)

Best wishes to Pauric,  Alan, Gary, Eoin and the Kildare U21 team in the All-Ireland Semi- final against Down on Saturday in Navan. Thanks to Kevin Brennan Vetinerary Supplies for his sponsorship of boots for Alan, Gary and Eoin.

Sarsfields Invited to ‘The Road To Croker’

Cork’s Christy Cooney is next GAA President

CORK’S Christy Cooney will be the next president of the GAA. Cooney,
whose defeat by Nickey Brennan in the previous election was a major
shock, made amends with a convincing victory over Liam O’Neill of Laois
and Seán Fogarty of Tipperary at the GAA Congress in Sligo yesterday.

Cooney, who was elected on the first count with 172 votes to 112 for
O’Neill and 26 for Fogarty, is a native of Youghal and a former chairman
of the Munster Council. He will take office in spring 2009. He is the
first Cork GAA president since the late Con Murphy, who held office in
the seventies, and the fourth overall.

The new president paid tribute to Murphy’s role as, ‘a serious mentor
and strong adviser,’ but refused to make any comment whatsoever about
his plans for the presidency or opinions about the Association as he
claimed this might undermine Brennan over the next year.

Cooney said that his previous defeat had given him an advantage, stating
‘like a horse in the Grand National, I’ve been over the jumps once
already,’ an equine theme echoed by Fogarty who said that having never
previously lost an election, he had, ‘fallen at the last fence. And I
fell hard.’

‘The GAA,’ said Cooney, ‘is the most democratic organisation that I know
of.’ He also evoked a childhood in a fanatical GAA family where, ‘you
could get hit by a sliotar coming in the front door and it would follow
you out the back.’

Cooney’s election was the highlight of an uneventful Congress which saw
a Central Council motion calling for acceptance of the Government grants
to inter-county players being passed overwhelmingly, despite passionate
interjections from Derry County Board chairman Seamus McCloy who said
that, under the scheme, ‘injustice will be increased and elitism will be
established,’ and Of One Belief founder Mark Conway of Tyrone who
described the deal as ‘grubby and sordid.’

The contributions by McCloy and Conway were greeted with applause from
the floor and there were only two speeches, that of proposer Con Hogan
and GPA chief executive Dessie Farrell, in favour of the motion, yet the
defeat for the opponents of the grants was even heavier than expected.

Farrell asked for a vote of confidence by the GAA in its elite players,
a theme echoed by Hogan who said the Government had, ‘recognised the
GAA’s contribution to our culture and our Irish way of life.’

There was a victory for grassroots pressure when a Wicklow motion
calling for an end to the current system whereby Division 4 teams are
not allowed to participate in the All-Ireland football qualifiers was
passed almost unanimously.

Despite a plea from ard stiúrthóir Páraic Duffy to give the
current system more time and an intervention by former president Seán
Kelly which advised against change, the delegates heeded the call of
Wicklow’s Tom Byrne to ‘let it be said you were at the conference of
2008 and did something for the weaker counties.’

The change will not, however, come into force for this year’s football
championships.

The GAA’s tangled relationship with alcohol took another twist when a
Laois motion calling for clubs to be prevented from filling trophies
with drink during celebrations was passed. Questions about how this ban
might be policed were answered by president Nickey Brennan’s suggestion
that, ‘there’s nothing wrong with taking a small drill and boring a hole
in the cup.’

From 2010, all senior inter-county players will have to wear helmets
with faceguards during both games and training after a Kilkenny motion
to that effect was passed. A section of that motion, which called for
players not to be allowed to wear helmets during football matches, was
passed without exciting great debate. A proposal by Monaghan that the
five-year term limit for Central and Provincial Council delegates be
removed was resoundingly defeated.

The big story of the day, however, was the elevation of Cooney to the
top job in the GAA. Despite his insistence that he would not comment on
his plans out of respect for the current president, he had obviously got
his message across to the voters.

Delegates to say ‘Yes’ in Grants vote

It’s now a fait d’accompli. After a six-year gestation period that incorporated months of controversy, notice served of a players’ strike, three Central Council votes, and three visits to the Disputes Resolution Authority (DR
A), the player welfare scheme is finally ready for approval.

There will be no late sucker punches or no last-gasp hand trips on the line
. Enough counties have been publicly mandated to support Central Council’s
call for approval of the scheme.

An Irish Independent audit of potential votes for the scheme, conducted in
advance of tonight’s Congress, shows that there is broad approval for the green light.
Predictably, the main body of opposition comes from Ulster where seven counties have formally instructed their delegates to oppose Central Council’s document.

Only two Ulster counties, Monaghan and Cavan, have decided to give support,
but in each of the other three provinces there has been almost unanimous a
pproval. Only one Cavan delegate spoke out against the grants/expenses at a
meeting brought forward by seven days to discuss the motion.

Three more counties, Louth, Longford and Limerick, have voted against the scheme, while Mayo, who initially opposed it, will now ‘wait and see’ before
making a decision.

‘We’ll have to digest the DRA paper and see what is in front of us,’ declared Mayo chairman James Waldron yesterday, cautioning that Mayo’s six delegate votes still hadn’t a settled home.

Some other counties are also currently ‘floating’ before making their minds
up later today. Laois and Clare have left it to their delegates to decide,
while Meath were understood to be waiting for the DRA judgment before fina
lising their stance. The likelihood is that they will give support once a r
ule change isn’t required.

Even if Clare and Laois delegates went against Central Council, there is still enough fuel to take the document across the threshold of a simple majority, regardless of how the sizeable overseas vote goes.

At Congress, overseas delegates have a massive 56 votes covering New York,
North America, Europe and Australia.

But even without their support the document, clearing the way for additional ‘eligible expenses’ funded to the tune of €3.5m by the Government
to be claimed by inter-county players, has a guaranteed 200 plus votes.

Assuming Meath and members of the GAA’s Management Committee vote in favour and discounting Clare and Laois, there are some 201 delegates certain to vote for the document.

That figure, however, is expected to be substantially higher.

Central Council delegates have already given almost unanimous approval to the document at their St Patrick’s Day meeting. But whether some of those same delegates will stick by that decision or vote with their counties remains to be seen. With 334 delegates eligible to vote the scheme can expect in excess of 70pc approval.

A few county votes were extremely divisive, including Louth which decided to oppose the document by 19-18 on Monday night. A robust debate also took place in Kildare before approval was given, while Cork surprised many with their 67-47 mandate in favour of paying inter-county players additional expenses on top of what they already get.

Given the player unrest in the county all winter and the impact a ‘No’ vote
might have had on Christy Cooney’s presidential election campaign, supporting Central Council was perhaps a risk-free strategy. Cork had waited for the DRA judgment to be published before making a decision. But the vast majority of counties were happy that the payment of grants to players could press ahead.

Farrell says ‘other initiatives’ on way

Farrell added that he was confident the scheme would be supported at this weekend’s GAA Congress and paid tribute to the GAA hierarchy for their handling of the issue.

‘In terms of other initiatives, we have others coming down the line,’ said
Farrell. ‘We’ll continue working and once the grants scheme is bedded down
official recognition is next on the agenda.’

Farrell’s stance was supported by Dublin defender Paul Casey: ‘It was great
news that the Dublin county board defeated a motion of no confidence in the grants. A lot of work has gone in with Dessie Farrell and the lads in the
GPA, and a lot of work has gone in behind the scenes.

‘We’re all hopeful that it will be sorted out sooner rather than later and
hopefully now it will be passed in Congress.

Farrell paid tribute to GAA President Nickey Brennan and Director-General Paraic Duffy, who was formerly the GAA’s player welfare officer.

‘We have a very good working relationship with Paraic (Duffy) – and Nickey
(Brennan) of late. In the early days that might have been somewhat frosty,
but the more interaction we have the more understanding there is of where each side is at.

‘That said, we’d like to have the arrangement recognised in a formal capacity, and I think that’s what we’ll be working towards after Congress.’

Farrell is confident that opposition to the player grant scheme has been overcome.

‘The final decision will be taken at Congress but I’m confident the motion
will be passed. While there have been individual opponents to the scheme, b
y and large the overwhelming majority of GAA people have no issue with it.
It’s Government money, it doesn’t contravene Rule 11 (of the GAA) and I think most people are happy that the contribution intercounty players make is
recognised in some shape or form by the Government.

Tyrone’s Seán Cavanagh was a also rowing in behind Farrell: ‘I have been
disappointed that most of the guys opposing the grants have been from Tyron
e which doesn’t surprise me at all. Fingers crossed now everything will go
well and it will be passed.

‘Mark Conway only lives 10 minutes from my house but I haven’t met him yet.
Fair play, everyone has a right to an opinion but from a players’ point of
view, 99% of the present Tyrone squad are for the grants.’

Farrell said that opposition to the scheme was not representative of the vast majority of GAA members, adding that those opponents had ‘punched way above their weight’ in terms of media attention.

‘I don’t know whether it was momentum, I think it was media-driven to be ho
nest. They claimed to be representative of the grass roots, which they’re not. I’m a member of the grass roots and I know thousands of others, and to
be truthful, it doesn’t exercise the minds of the grass roots members.

‘Anyone who has taken a moment to think about it realises there are paltry
sums of money involved, and it’s not about the money. It’s the principle.

‘Yes, the grants issue has been a high-profile one, because you’re dealing
with the Taoiseach and the Minister for Sport, while then the opposition to
it tended to feed the anti-grant movement oxygen.

‘I think they’ve punched way above their weight in terms of the platform th
ey’ve been given by the media, to be honest, but ultimately Congress will m
ake the right decision. Amateur athletes in other codes receive it, why sho
uldn’t our players receive it?’

Farrell added that the GPA wasn’t solely focused on the grants issue.

‘There’s a lot more work goes on in the GPA that doesn’t make the headlines
because it’s not sexy or glamorous enough. That’s understandable – papers
tend to be interested in money issues or confrontational or controversial issues. The mundane, basic day-to-day work of the GPA doesn’t secure headlines but that’s an important part of what we’re about, our raison d’etre if you like.’

RTÉ.ie to Stream GAA Congress Live Around the World

This year’s Congress takes place in the Radisson Hotel in Sligo and
RTÉ.ie will be streaming day 2 live from 10am to 4.30pm.
Schedule: Saturday, 12 April

• 10am Consideration of motions
• 12.30pm Óráid an Uachtaráin
• 2.15pm Consideration of motions
• 3.30pm Election of Uachtarán-Tofa
• 4.00pm Address by Uachtarán-Tofa
• 4.00pm Consideration of remainder of motions
• 4.30pm Conclusion of Congress

The candidates to succeed Nickey Brennan are Christy Cooney, Sean
Fogarty, and Liam O’Neill, and profiles of all three are available to
watch on demand ahead of the Congress at RTÉ.ie/Sport/Gaa.

In addition to Nickey Brennan’s address to Congress at 12.30, the
live-stream will include the first address of the President Elect,
following the announcement of the result of the election.

Supporters around the world will also be able to watch the debate on a
number of interesting motions, not least of which is the Kilkenny motion
calling for the wearing of helmets with facial guards to be made
compulsory in all hurling games and training sessions. If successful
this rule change will come into operation on 1 January 2010.
The GAA Congress is an annual conference at which representatives from
each of the 32 counties and the overseas units, Britain, New York, North
America, Australasia, Canada and Europe, come together to debate and
vote upon motions which affect the GAA Rule-Book.

Tommy Murphy Cup ‘Dead in the Water’, says GAA Boss
 
IT was launched so as to give weaker football counties a chance to
possibly enjoy a big day out in Croke Park but the Tommy Murphy Cup
competition is facing extinction at the end of this season.

It follows Saturday’s Congress decision to reinstate Division Four teams
to the All Ireland qualifiers from 2009 onwards. That was the situation
in 2001-2006, after which Division Four teams were controversially
excluded.

Wicklow, who won last year’s Tommy Murphy Cup after beating Antrim in a
thrilling final that was decided after a fierce extra-time battle, led
the charge for the re-admittance of Division Four teams and gathered
support from Leitrim, Tipperary, Offaly, London, Kildare, Clare and
Carlow — all of which led to an overwhelming vote in favour of change.

Publicly complimenting the Irish Independent for continuing to champion
the cause of the weaker teams, Tipperary delegate, Noel Morris, said
that it was unfair to deny Division Four teams the chance to re-enter
the All Ireland race via the qualifiers.

GAA Director-General, Paraic Duffy, warned that allowing those teams
back into the championship would have a negative impact on the local
club scene as it would use up an extra weekend and add to already hectic
schedules.

Duffy also said that it would be naive to expect that a Division Four
team would start winning championship games and questioned why change
was being proposed so soon.

 However, the weaker counties were in defiant mood and when it came to
the vote they got widespread support from the stronger ones too.

GAA President Nickey Brennan said afterwards that the change would mean
the end of the Tommy Murphy Cup competition, certainly in its present
format.

‘It’s dead in the water — it’s as simple as that. We just don’t have
the dates to fit in everything,’ he said.

However, he said he was conscious that the memory of Tommy Murphy, a
one-time Laois great and a legend in his own right, should continue to
be recognised, so it remains to be seen if a decision will be taken to
allocate the trophy to some other competition.

GAA & Other Quotes

‘Does the GAA take its democratic principles from the Tammany Hall school of democratic politics, or that former great bastion of democracy, the Societ Communist Party?’
        – Letter to ‘The Irish Times’ (2001)
‘When knowledge of the rules is the preserve of a few, this confers a certain power on these few, which is unhealthy and undemocratic. Are there 40 people in this hall who could confidently put a motion in order for Congress? Are there 30? Are there 20? Are there 10?’
        – Sean Kelly, President’s address to GAA Congress (2004)
‘The first time I brought the boys to a match they were chocked at the abuse being heaped on Sean. I kept trying to tell them it was the referee they were shouting at but they said, ‘Mammy, the referee isn’t bald’.’
        – Wife of Meath manager Sean Boylan [1]
Baseball, it is said, is only a game. True. And the Grand Canyon is only a hole in Arizona. Not all holes, or games, are created equal.
        – George Will
‘All of us learn to write in the second grade. Most of us go on to greater things.’
        – Bobby Knight, on sportswriters
 Sports are the reason I am out of shape. I watch them all on TV.
        – Thomas Sowell
‘All things considered, and taking one thing with another, I think it is fair to say that the cricket World Cup of 2007 really was the worst sporting event in history. It went on for match after match after match, and practically all of the matches were dull. It was like the couple copulating in the next room: you can’t believe they’re still at it, or still want to be. Can anything compare in tedium and anticlimax? It had everything, mismatches, one-sided games, games that didn’t matter much, games that were simply short of action or drama or interest. International sporting organisations across the world are invited to study this event long and hard: it is the perfect template for the ruination of a sport.
The tournament, in its desire to seem truly global, had far too many no-hopers. Bermuda, indeed. After that, the so-called Super Eights required 24 games to reduce eight teams to four. That is exactly 20 too many. How can sports administrators make such crass errors? Simple. They aren’t interested in sport. They are interested in power. The more countries you involve, the more power you have. The more money you make from a multination tournament, the more power you have. As a result of this simple rule, all World Cups in all sports have become exercises in revenue-raising and colonisation.
Administrators want the money and the power that goes with a bloated tournament and thousands of hours of television. They don’t care that it produces tedious sport. No one has told them that if sport gets tedious, we – the people who matter – will stop going or watching or caring.
Moral: every sporting tournament should have sporting excellence as its sole aim. Anything else betrays the spectators, the television viewers, the athletes and sport itself. And now, with the cricket World Cup of 2007, we at last have the perfect example of this principle. ‘
        – Simon Barnes, ‘The London Times’

Managers unite in face of qualifier exclusion

THE managers of the four counties threatened with exclusion from the All
Ireland football qualifiers as a result of being relegated from Division
3 have united in a demand that the controversial mechanism be scrapped.

Luke Dempsey (Longford), Dessie Dolan (Leitrim), Mickey Ned O’Sullivan
(Limerick) and Tommy Jordan (Sligo) have urged next weekend’s Congress
to back a proposal to return to the system where all counties were
admitted to the qualifiers. It’s currently confined to the top three
Divisions and with two from Longford, Leitrim, Limerick and Sligo facing
relegation to Division 4, there’s considerable anger among them.

The mood is no better in Division 4 where only the top two are allowed
into the qualifiers. Offaly are already assured of promotion and are
likely to be joined by Antrim.

Only two points separate Longford, Limerick, Leitrim and Sligo in the
bottom half of Division 3, leaving the final round of games, plus the
Down v Limerick back fixture, crucial in deciding the fate of two
squads.

‘I have asked the Leitrim County Board to fight hard to change the
system at Congress. Linking qualification for the Championship with how
a team finished in the League is unfair. Is this about finance? If it
is, then it’s all wrong. And if it’s about getting more time for club
games, does one more round of qualifiers make a difference,’ said Dolan.

‘I have lads driving from all over the place to training. Two of them
(Shane Foley and Phil McGuinness) come from Belmullet which is a long
haul. But if Leitrim end up in Division 4 and don’t reach the Connacht
final, we won’t be allowed into the qualifiers. What sort of an
incentive is that for players,’ he added.

Crucial

Luke Dempsey, whose Longford team faces a crucial relegation clash with
Sligo on Sunday week, outlined what he regards as a bizarre anomaly.

‘If we’re relegated, we would have to end up as defeated Leinster
finalists to get into the qualifiers. We could beat Westmeath and Offaly
and then lose narrowly to Dublin or Louth in the semi-final but wouldn’t
be allowed in, yet Westmeath and Offaly would. That’s ridiculous, just
as it was unfair that good teams were barred from the qualifiers last
year,’ he said.

Limerick fell from Division 1 to 3 under the re-formed groups and are
now in danger of dropping into Division 4 and a qualifier-free zone.

‘It defies logic. Clearly, this wasn’t thought through properly. Does
one extra day for club games make such a difference? Players aspire to
playing for their county as often as they can at the highest level, but
we now have a situation where those who have to work hardest to become
competitive face purgatory if they drop into Division 4,’ remarked
manager Mickey Ned O’Sullivan.

New Sligo manager Tommy Jordan said the qualifiers were introduced to
give everybody a second chance but that was no longer the case. If Sligo
are relegated and fail to beat London and Mayo in the Championship, they
will be facing the unusual situation of not being allowed into the
qualifiers despite being the previous season’s Connacht champions.
‘Maybe, it’s time the whole system was changed — certainly this looks
wrong,’ he said.

There’s discontent in Division 4 too, not least in Wicklow who will put
a motion to Congress calling for a general admission to the qualifiers.
Manager Mick O’Dwyer described it as madness that weaker counties are
excluded:’The GAA shouldn’t be all about strong counties but that’s what
happening here. Either every county or no county should get a second
chance.’

The new system was introduced last year but clearly there’s growing
opposition which should lead to a lively debate on Saturday. However,
even if the Wicklow motion is successful, it will be 2009 before
Division 4 teams are re-admitted as all the arrangements are in place
for this year.

Wexford refuse to back down

WEXFORD are not backing down on contesting the way this year’s National
Leagues have been administered and are pressing ahead with their case to
the Disputes Resolution Authority (DRA).

They still have not received a date for the hearing and the case cannot
take place now until next week because of National Congress, but Wexford
Chairman Ger Doyle confirmed yesterday that they are not for turning.

Wexford are arguing that allowing Cork back into the NHL and NFL after
they had missed two games in each was in direct contravention of what
they call was a ‘two strikes and you’re out’ decision taken by Central
Council on January 26.

Croke Park did release a formal statement at that time, saying that
Central Council had ‘agreed that, in the event of two games in the
hurling or football competitions being awarded in circumstances where a
given county cannot field a team, the county shall be automatically
disqualified from the current National League in the code in which the
two games were not fulfilled.’

However, that was before GAA President Nickey Brennan intervened
directly in the Cork row and labour relations specialist Kieran Mulvey
was brought in to mediate — drastic measures that eventually solved the
impasse and saw Cork resume competitive action after missing two games
in each of the national leagues.

The NHL semi-finals are going ahead this weekend with the final in a
week’s time, yet Doyle still believes Wexford’s actions could yet
succeed in changing it’s competitive outcome.

A separate row is already expected over the resolution of Division 2 of
the NFL where it has been suggested that play-offs will be used to
separate teams who finish on equal points.

Both Roscommon and Cavan County Boards have already objected to the way
this division has been managed in the wake of the Rebel’s return.

Dublin and Meath got the points from the walkovers that Cork were forced
to concede, but Roscommon and Cavan argued that the Rebels should have
started on minus points, to even things up for the rest of the teams.

Humour

Dispatcher: 911
Caller: Yeah, I’m having trouble breathing. I’m all out of breath. Darn….I think I’m going to pass out.
Dispatcher: Sir, where are you calling from?
Caller: I’m at a pay phone. North and Foster.
Dispatcher: ! Sir, an ambulance is on the way. Are you an asthmatic?
Caller: No
Dispatcher: What were you doing before you started having trouble breathing?
Caller: Running from the Police.
Dispatcher: 911 What’s the nature of your emergency?
Caller: My wife is pregnant and her contractions are only two minutes apart
Dispatcher: Is this her first child?
Caller: No, you idiot! This is her husband!

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