Beating the Brits

20th Feb 2007

England at Croker
Finbarr Barry

Croke Park awaits, with Michael Hogan, victim of Bloody Sunday inset

The English RFU have been tip toeing very gently around the issue of their long awaited visit to Croke Park this Saturday. Officials have put out various statements bowing and scraping to the GAA in overwhelming gratitude for allowing them to play in Croke Park.

Had the GAA refused to let the oval ball inside the hallowed walls one suspects that the Brits would be more than happy to have the game played at the MilleniumStadium in Cardiff - just over the English border and a short train journey from London.

Instead they must walk out from the Hogan Stand on Saturday in full knowledge that it would not have been called such had the Black and Tans not shot Tipperary football captain Michael Hogan there 86 years ago.

Rugby's popularity in recent years stems from an undeniable fact: Ireland have got quite good at it. Few will forget those awful days in the eighties and nineties watching a slippery ball being thrown

Dublin brawl: typical

around like a hot potato in Twickenham while Fred Cogley would assure us that despite the fifty point deficit and the blood pouring from Ollie Campbell's head that Ireland were starting to show signs of improvement: namely putting a few passes together without dropping the ball.

For hardcore GAA heads the flamboyance of certain rugby stars, like those in soccer is hard to take. Remaining a resolute 'ordinary joe' is a vital to the image of the GAA's model footballer or hurler.

Furthermore the GAA simply doesn't do flamboyance. If Joe Deane scored a goal for Cork and did a celebratory Robbie Keane style somersault while pretending to shoot the crowd with imaginary cowboy pistols he would be lynched by home fans as well as away fans. Who does yer man think he is?!

To be lauded in GAA circles one must remain forever humble, always talking yourself down, marrying a mediocre looking woman and only appearing on awful low-budget television programmes like The Afternoon Show.

Posh feens playing dirty

Money Bags Beckham, bling-bling Ashley Cole and diving expert Christiano Ronaldo are the very antithesis of the model GAA player. Faking injury, bleaching your hair or dating a TG4 weather girl is far more likely to draw the wrath of GAA fans and its journalists than getting involved in a bit of an off the ball 'schmozzle'.

You can see their point though. While rugby is undeniably the most intensely physical game of the lot, soccer has largely lost its manliness.

Players drop to the ground at the slightest touch hoping to win the sympathy of the referee, often looking like a pathetic spoilt child vying for the attention of his teacher in the playground. Hardcore GAA fans see their own games as being more honest - sometimes brutally so.

To be realistic, the discomfort with the oval ball has always been that it was seen as a game for posh people. Those with a private education, solicitors, doctors and people with yachts played it. The local GAA club on the other hand looked after everybody - you didn't need to be well connected or work on South Mall to be welcomed into the fold.

You might get a welcoming elbow in the mouth on your first night's training and you might be long term unemployed but that didn't matter. At least you weren't trying to keep up with the Jones's and pronouncing your 'th' properly over at the rugby club.

Oh the irony Christiano!

Even God appeared to be on your side too with the Catholic Church directly or indirectly funding clubs and grounds as big as Croker itself. Meanwhile Protestant surnames filled rugby team sheets and you'd have to go to Limerick to find a club with a "Saint" in the name.

With giant leaps in the economy many social barriers have been lifted. Nowadays rural rugby clubs like Clonakilty, Youghal and Mallow are thriving. In both city and county scobes are jumping in the line outs and shams are taking twenty-two drop outs.

At the same time rugby schools like PBC and CBC are churning out respectable under-age hurling teams while their past pupils play the oval ball in Croke Park. Meanwhile, junior-B hurlers are arriving to training in brand new SUVs and a tan from their recent sojourn to buy property in The Maldives. Things are getting mighty confusing.

The sight of broken English men in Croke Park would warm the coldest GAA hearts.

As a letter in the Times recently noted the Engilsh team "will not have the armoured cars they had the last time they ran out on the turf at Croke Park" but any cockiness, laddishness, bravado or over the top celebrations on their behalf will be just as dangerous.

Their tip toeing and sensitivity on the issue is well advised - the chariot must swing well out of sight. The English must appear humbled at being permitted to play on such Holy Ground or risk political backlash.

There is one thing however, that will warm the hearts of even the most vehement opposition to the opening of Croker to foreign games on Saturday evening: the sight of a bedraggled and defeated Englishman with his head bowed being shepparded to his dressing room via the Hogan Stand - a sorry victim of the boot of a certain Corkman.