Being nourished with mis-truths has always been an occupational hazard in GAA journalism. Brian Cody, having watched GAA scribes devour the finest of sirloin steaks at one of many pre All-Ireland final press nights hosted by Langton’s, is credited for coming up with a home-baked fungi dessert.
“Treat them like mushrooms,” he advised his players. “Keep them in the dark and feed them shit.”
We suspect that Cody might be getting too much credit as ever since inter-county managers have been blessed with wit and journalists armed with quills, one has been serving while the other is forced to devour.
These times, though, the lies come sauced with enough truth that it is hard to know what to spit out and what to digest.
Take Jim McGuinness last weekend when quizzed on what consequences his team’s first defeat of the season might have on their ambitions to reach the league final.
“If we get there, we get there. We’re not that bothered. If we don’t get there, it gives us an extra week to prepare for the Down match,” replied the Donegal manager.
Jim McGuinness with his Donegal players. Ryan Byrne / INPHO
Ryan Byrne / INPHO / INPHO
The slogan for the leagues used to be “win again, lose again, rise again”; “we are not bothered” is a much-harder sell.
McGuinness was not alone. Down at the other end of the country, Jack O’Connor was poker-faced after Kerry’s merciless blitzing of Mayo that left the All-Ireland champions almost as close to a place in the league final as Donegal.
But just because they could see it didn’t necessarily mean they wanted to call there.
“How sure are you of that? The main priority was not to get into relegation bother and to blood some players,” the Kerry manager responded, when quizzed if a league final spot would be the fuel to shorten the road to Armagh this Sunday.
Who are we to believe, then?
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Both of them.
Neither of them.
That is the thing with half-truths; what makes them such great lies is they tend to be rooted in indisputable logic.
The championship is the absolute priority, and everything else, even that national final which for Donegal as they face relegated Monaghan this weekend, is now harder to avoid than to reach, is secondary.
If that is the truth, well here is the lie.
The league is of huge importance to Donegal for all kinds of reasons. In the 100 years that it has been in existence, they have won it just once in 2007.
Park everything else and if Donegal win the league, McGuinness will have been in charge of half the national titles the county has ever won. Sometimes instead of playing poker, why not just live in the moment?
And, then, there is context. In his second coming, his almost evangelical presence has lifted the county from deep in the pack, right to the front. Not to the top yet mind, because of two seismic defeats to Galway and Kerry in Croke Park.
Yes, a first ever Ulster three-in-a-row would be historic, but winning a national final in Croke Park might just add a layer of belief that runs deeper than being back-to-back Ulster champions, especially if it is Kerry they clamber up the steps ahead of.
Anyhow, and this hardly needs stating, winning the league and winning Ulster are hardly mutually exclusive.
As for Jack?
He may point disarmingly to his record of adding an All-Ireland to every one of the five league titles as a piseog, but it is likely that a piseog in this instance is a blood relative to best practice.
Setting standards early while extending a competitive spring to help shrink a provincial championship window that is anything but has obvious benefits.
Kerry's Armin Heinrich. James Crombie / INPHO
James Crombie / INPHO / INPHO
The blooding of talents such as Armin Heinrich, Cillian Trant, Thomas Kennedy and Keith Evans is all very good, but exposing them to a national final in Croke Park holds the promise of being far more illuminating for all involved.
So, our hunch is that Jim is indeed bothered and Jack is pretty sure, but the problem here is that we have to ask that question in the first instance, because the league deserves so much better.
It has always delivered on what Gaelic football would look like as an entity when stripped back to the bare essentials which allows competitiveness to flourish, rather than being imprisoned in geographical cages.
This weekend, that sense of competitive vitality, of democratic well-being, is almost intoxicating.
After 96 games, 26 of the 32 teams hit the final round with something to play for. That includes Division 4, where relegation does not feature and where seven teams are separated by just two points.
Come the summer, and even allowing for Limerick’s run to the final last year, not even the Tailteann Cup will offer those teams that sense of being a living, breathing part of a competitive structure.
And, of course, before that in the name of tradition, they will most likely have their dignity and identity thrashed as fodder in provincial competitions, with the exception of Ulster for the most part, not worthy of being labelled championships.
It deserves so much more than half-truths, but Jim and Jack, like all those before and all those who will follow them, are left with little choice but to peddle them.
Jack O'Connor with fans in Tralee last Saturday. James Lawlor / INPHO
James Lawlor / INPHO / INPHO
Five years ago, the GAA was faced with its own moment of truth to change all that when they had the option of flipping the season, playing the tried and failed provincial championships as standalone competitions and going with the tried and proven league as the new summer championship format.
Instead, they went back to the half-truth that by offering the league a tokenistic nod, linking it to the championship in the most abstract of ways, everything would be alright.
It is when you start believing your own half-truths that the great lie comes back to deceive.
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What do Donegal and Kerry really want with league final places on offer?
THEY SAY HALF a truth is the best of all lies.
Being nourished with mis-truths has always been an occupational hazard in GAA journalism. Brian Cody, having watched GAA scribes devour the finest of sirloin steaks at one of many pre All-Ireland final press nights hosted by Langton’s, is credited for coming up with a home-baked fungi dessert.
“Treat them like mushrooms,” he advised his players. “Keep them in the dark and feed them shit.”
We suspect that Cody might be getting too much credit as ever since inter-county managers have been blessed with wit and journalists armed with quills, one has been serving while the other is forced to devour.
These times, though, the lies come sauced with enough truth that it is hard to know what to spit out and what to digest.
Take Jim McGuinness last weekend when quizzed on what consequences his team’s first defeat of the season might have on their ambitions to reach the league final.
“If we get there, we get there. We’re not that bothered. If we don’t get there, it gives us an extra week to prepare for the Down match,” replied the Donegal manager.
The slogan for the leagues used to be “win again, lose again, rise again”; “we are not bothered” is a much-harder sell.
McGuinness was not alone. Down at the other end of the country, Jack O’Connor was poker-faced after Kerry’s merciless blitzing of Mayo that left the All-Ireland champions almost as close to a place in the league final as Donegal.
But just because they could see it didn’t necessarily mean they wanted to call there.
“How sure are you of that? The main priority was not to get into relegation bother and to blood some players,” the Kerry manager responded, when quizzed if a league final spot would be the fuel to shorten the road to Armagh this Sunday.
Who are we to believe, then?
Both of them.
Neither of them.
That is the thing with half-truths; what makes them such great lies is they tend to be rooted in indisputable logic.
The championship is the absolute priority, and everything else, even that national final which for Donegal as they face relegated Monaghan this weekend, is now harder to avoid than to reach, is secondary.
If that is the truth, well here is the lie.
The league is of huge importance to Donegal for all kinds of reasons. In the 100 years that it has been in existence, they have won it just once in 2007.
Park everything else and if Donegal win the league, McGuinness will have been in charge of half the national titles the county has ever won. Sometimes instead of playing poker, why not just live in the moment?
And, then, there is context. In his second coming, his almost evangelical presence has lifted the county from deep in the pack, right to the front. Not to the top yet mind, because of two seismic defeats to Galway and Kerry in Croke Park.
Yes, a first ever Ulster three-in-a-row would be historic, but winning a national final in Croke Park might just add a layer of belief that runs deeper than being back-to-back Ulster champions, especially if it is Kerry they clamber up the steps ahead of.
Anyhow, and this hardly needs stating, winning the league and winning Ulster are hardly mutually exclusive.
As for Jack?
He may point disarmingly to his record of adding an All-Ireland to every one of the five league titles as a piseog, but it is likely that a piseog in this instance is a blood relative to best practice.
Setting standards early while extending a competitive spring to help shrink a provincial championship window that is anything but has obvious benefits.
The blooding of talents such as Armin Heinrich, Cillian Trant, Thomas Kennedy and Keith Evans is all very good, but exposing them to a national final in Croke Park holds the promise of being far more illuminating for all involved.
So, our hunch is that Jim is indeed bothered and Jack is pretty sure, but the problem here is that we have to ask that question in the first instance, because the league deserves so much better.
It has always delivered on what Gaelic football would look like as an entity when stripped back to the bare essentials which allows competitiveness to flourish, rather than being imprisoned in geographical cages.
This weekend, that sense of competitive vitality, of democratic well-being, is almost intoxicating.
After 96 games, 26 of the 32 teams hit the final round with something to play for. That includes Division 4, where relegation does not feature and where seven teams are separated by just two points.
Come the summer, and even allowing for Limerick’s run to the final last year, not even the Tailteann Cup will offer those teams that sense of being a living, breathing part of a competitive structure.
And, of course, before that in the name of tradition, they will most likely have their dignity and identity thrashed as fodder in provincial competitions, with the exception of Ulster for the most part, not worthy of being labelled championships.
It deserves so much more than half-truths, but Jim and Jack, like all those before and all those who will follow them, are left with little choice but to peddle them.
Five years ago, the GAA was faced with its own moment of truth to change all that when they had the option of flipping the season, playing the tried and failed provincial championships as standalone competitions and going with the tried and proven league as the new summer championship format.
Instead, they went back to the half-truth that by offering the league a tokenistic nod, linking it to the championship in the most abstract of ways, everything would be alright.
It is when you start believing your own half-truths that the great lie comes back to deceive.
*****
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column Donegal GAA Jack O'Connor Jim McGuinness Kerry Springtime Aims