The kids are being frightened off by Not Men But Giants

   Remember what it’s like being about 8 years of age? You want sausages for dinner every day, any present is cool as long as it’s not a soft parcel, because that was clothes and might as well have been a present for your mother, and earthworms are just plain fantastic. And most 8 year olds, being children and wonderfully irrational, also tend to get nightmares. Not for no reason do parents stop their kids watching anything after 9pm, because the slightest trigger from the wrong show being glimpsed at the wrong moment could set them up for a night of terrified sobbing and a nervous companion sharing their bed with the light on.

   We’ve all noticed in the past that the GAA marketing department isn’t exactly the most forward thinking in the world, generally believing that if they put the games on, tell one or two people, word will spread and it’ll all be all right on the night. To be fair it has worked, at least on a local level, but that’s another matter. At least a somewhat shabby approach to marketing usually won’t do any harm, but when it comes to hurling, we seem to have a very bizarre approach to selling the game to future generations. These 8 year olds, so prone to nightmares, are being given advertisements with themes such as “Not Men but Giants”, giant fiery sliothars being drilled at their heads at great pace, and great big ogres (ok, Diarmuid O’Sullivan, but close enough) catching balls and bursting through all that happens to be in his path leaving them face down to drown in the water. Now I’m all too aware that several of these kids no doubt have access to various media such as the game Resident Evil 2, The Ring Movie, and the Joe Duffy radio show, which is pretty much every known form of grotesque horror known to man, but even if they are completely desensitised, it’s not exactly the kind of thing that makes them go “cool, I’ll have a go at that!”.

   In classic Lone Shark fashion, I’m now going to sidestep completely, and approach my point from a completely different angle, only to (hopefully!) converge at some point in the near future. No doubt if I was being graded in an exam I’d suffer for this, but chances are Mrs Jordan isn’t reading this, so onwards we go….

   Year after year we’re treated to the Hurling Task Force, or other such concerned bodies bemoaning the state of hurling in Ireland. They’re particularly vocal this year, in light of some of the alarmingly one sided games we’ve seen in the NHL. Some choose to pick on the rules, some carry on completely appalled at the lack of hurls in Fermanagh, some talk about the dominance of the big three. Football has its’ share of problems too, but relative to the football fraternity, the hurling community have what could only be described as a pessimistic bordering on morbid outlook towards the future of their game. The usual cheerleaders trotted out are Liam Griffin and Ger Loughnane, two legends of the game, and two men who led their counties to the top of the pile after long absences. Both men care deeply about hurling, and are passionate followers of the game and the fortunes of their own counties in particular. Both men are also utter hypocrites for the way they go about it, and are doing considerably more harm than good.

   This may seem harsh, but let’s take a step back, and imagine we’re a consultancy firm from Uruguay, brought in to take an objective view of the state of hurling and what can be done to promote it. As a Uruguayan consultant, I would first suggest we want to get more people playing the games. Let’s start with the adults – now there are two types of adults out there – active and inactive. The inactive are struggling to be roused for a game of five a side football or God knows even a walk, so I’m thinking getting them to take up a camán is a big ask. So let’s go for the active ones. Again, the most likely to take up the game, you would think, would be those interested in GAA. Golfers tend to be a bit on the mature side, amateur rugby players tend to do it more to let off steam and would be even less likely than the average to be possessed of quick wrists and lightning reflexes, and soccer players that don’t already play GAA usually have a chip on their shoulder about the lads over in the GAA club having all the hot showers and nice facilities while they hoover the muck out of their boot from where they changed last week. So we’re looking at interested GAA people but not hurlers – well I guess that has to be footballers then. So in order to charm these people over to playing hurling, the brains trust of the game decides to tell everyone that football is a simple game for skill-less brutes, with athleticism the only real deciding factor. It is harangued from every corner as being about pulling and dragging, how it’s the inferior sport, and how it’s so boring by comparison. In many cases it’s vilified as the bad guy, spoiling our games and tolerating foul play. And after all that sweet talking telling a player that they’re preferred hobby is a relatively un-Irish and skill-less pastime, they then expect them to smile and come play with them. For an added bonus, they re-iterate at every available opportunity how you can’t play the two sports, the day of the dual player is gone, and how you need to be hurling all the time – no time for that football nonsense. And then they expect the junior b full back for Ballymahon, the intermediate wing forward from Dunshaughlin and the senior midfielder from Scotstown to give up that ould football craic and come play hurling in front of ten men and a dog – or just as often three dogs and no men. You have no skill and our game is unbelievably difficult, but come play it anyway. 

   Now the Uruguayan consultant decides that they’ll look at the other strand – what are they doing to entice the kids to have a go at the old stickfighting. The first thing they see is a series of advertisements designed to give the young children nightmares. Off to a flyer. Now let’s listen to some of the kind of quotes you hear from hurling men, most of which are peddled with great regularity by Griffin, Loughnane and the likes.


“This is the fastest, toughest, hardest game in the world. The skills involved are unbelievable”

“You need to be getting kids in from a very young age – ideally we’d target six to eight year olds – once they get to thirteen or fourteen it’s too late.” (This amazing comment came from the development officer for South Dublin.)

“They’ve a great tradition of hurling in places like Kilkenny, it’s very hard compete with that.”

   Now look at those quotes again as if you were a thirteen year old from Edenderry and ask if hurling is the game for you, or are would you think that you’ll never make it to the top?
That’s not to say that several of those athletic types that’ll play every game put in front of them won’t try, but it’s only natural that again you scare off a lot of potential customers. Liam Griffin did once use the quote that “If they can take black coloured gripe water and make it the best selling drink in the world surely we can sell hurling to the people of Longford?” Sure you can Liam – just stop telling them that they’re too old and they’d never be as good anyway.

   By now the Uruguayans are on a flight home by the way.

   That’s not to say that I disagree with the sentiment in any of those quotes. Hurling is a tremendously difficult sport to master. But we’ve got to stop plugging it as some sort of innate Celtic thing, and that you’re not Irish if you can’t pop a ball over the bar from 60 yards while being chased by two lads. You can play it and be useless at it – much like the Lone Shark. It can still be fun, and then just maybe when you have kids, and they grow up in a house with a few lumps of ash lying about the place, they might get that early head start.
   It’s also true that ideally you’d get a kid at a young age. But here’s my thinking on it, stop me wherever I’m wrong. Say Eoin Kelly takes up hurling at, for the sake of argument, seven years of age. 11 years later he makes the Tipp senior team. 12 years later he wins an All Star. Now take the Edenderry kid of 13. Why isn’t twelve years of hurling enough for him to win an All Star? Why can he not take it up anyway, and maybe not hit the county team until 23 years of age, but sure isn’t it time enough – maybe he won’t burn out as quick? Why do we need everyone to have all the skills at 18? Surely we can get them started, keep them involved and just let them improve at their own pace – and even if they’re not that good, they’re still committed hurling people, hopefully setting their sons and daughters down the same road in due course.

   Now to the third comment – and this is where I really take issue. It’s correct that places like Tipperary and Kilkenny have a great tradition in the game – but why is that? I’ve been down there, I’m pretty sure the air in Templemore in Tipperary is similar to the air in Knockmore in Mayo. The drinking water in Dunamaggin is not any different to that in Sallynoggin. Kids don’t all go to hurling boot camp at six years of age. Tradition just means that the kids are getting good coaching the whole way up, that the proper skills in the game are being imparted to them, and senior teams are training and preparing properly. Dermot Healy is just as much a hurling evangelist as Loughnane, but Dermot Healy believed in hurling first and his own county second. Above all people we in Offaly should know this, being the main beneficiaries of the man’s work. Likewise Brother Denis in St. Brendan’s school in Birr – he left his homeplace and looked to bring hurling with him. These are the people who are actually trying to spread the good word. People like Dinny Cahill, clocking up unbelievable miles travelling to Antrim and bringing his Tipperary nous to the Glens. People like Eoin Garvey of Clare, whose great work with the Carlow hurlers came to such spectacular fruition recently.  If Liam Griffin wants to sell hurling to the people of Longford, how about taking on the post of Longford hurling manager, and show them first hand what it’s all about. I’m aware of the huge time commitment it would take, and normally you would say that it would be above and beyond the call of duty, but his constant bemoaning of the state of hurling in public while not actually doing anything constructive grates with me somewhat. This is not forgetting the work he’s doing on committees etc, but it’s hardly of much use revamping the hurling championship format for counties like Longford if no-one who actually makes a difference is willing to go up there to teach them how to hurl.

   The finally and fatal blow to the efforts of those selling hurling, as with all things, comes from within. The connection between hurling and politics runs deep, and not just because of great men like Jack Lynch. Hurling men, like politicians, have a tendency to talk about the greater good, but at the end of the day they always look after their own patch first. The game of hurling, perhaps not to the same degree as football, is blighted by foul play and dirty strokes. Henry Shefflin, perhaps the finest practitioner of the game today almost lost the sight of one eye last year due to a foul stroke by Gerry Quinn. And yet when JJ Delaney makes a cynical last man foul against Waterford this year, Brian Cody, the manager of Henry Shefflin, talks about how hurling does not have a discipline problem, and that JJ Delaney was a good honest hurler who’d never pull a foul stroke, and that the punishment was too severe. JJ went on to make rather a monkey of his manager by getting a further yellow card against Clare for fighting. Now many timid children and parents are wary of the risk of injury inherent in hurling. But that’s not as important to Brian Cody as his wing back missing half a league match.

   All across the country we want to encourage people to take up the game. But Padjoe Whelehan, in his capacity as Limerick manager, tells his team that they can’t play football as well as hurling. Six players decide fair enough, and go to play big ball only. Whatever about whether Limerick and by extension Padjoe did well out of this exchange, it hardly did much for the efforts of clubs all across the northern half of Ireland where managers are trying to get lads to play hurling only to be told that they can only play one sport, and that football is enough for them. Liam Griffin’s ludicrous proposal that Wexford should take a leaf out of Kilkenny’s book and basically abandon football to concentrate on hurling could easily be used to further emphasise this point, but it’s almost too outlandish to even mention.

   Much like the political world, hurling needs administrators to take charge who want to spread hurling, rather than those who think it would be a nice idea but, only if the newcomers lose the All Ireland final to Cork/Tipp/Kilkenny at the end of it all.
   Hurling is a wonderful game, and a beautiful expression of both the artistic and athletic nature of the Celtic race. When played by the best players in the game, it is a thing of beauty. But people should not forget that it is played by mere mortals, and it’s okay to be utterly mortal and play at whatever level makes you happy. It shouldn’t be a hard sell, but when you give the child nightmares, you tell the teenager he’s too old and you tell the adult that footballers like you are thugs, well you’re not allowing a lot to slip through the cracks. Lay off the hardline approach lads. Get people playing the game first, and getting them to play it well will follow. Despite what they might say, it’s only a game.