GAELIC SPORTS WORLD Issue 36 - October 17, 2015 | Page 28

ALL KINDS

OF EVERYTHING
– TOMMY MORAN
OCTOBER 10, 2015
It’s a while now since Dana entranced us all about butterflies
and bees, but maybe she was really foretelling the 2015 All Ireland Football Championship.
All kinds of everything it certainly had, the good, the bad
and the ugly. The good could be the cliff-hanger between Tyrone and Donegal; the Dublin v Mayo clashes; individual performances from players like Jack McCaffrey, Ryan McHugh
or Aidan O’Shea; the scoring feats of Sean Quigley and Bernard Brogan; heart-stopping moments like when Westmeath
clawed back at Meath or the dying minutes of the Semi-final,
when Tyrone almost cooked the Kerry goose; the buzz that
emanated from every county as their team took to the field in
another chance to dream. The bad would certainly include the
astonishing number of very one-sided encounters; the woeful
shooting of so many forwards, despite the myriad of training
sessions and shooting practices; the play-acting and the diving. The ugly could be described in one word, sledging.

up to each other in Croke Park, Clones, Castlebar or Carrick
on Shannon or at other venues throughout the country. The
combatants must forget that they’re on camera, as they mouth
straight into the face of their marker when they have taken a
point, goading him to react. Likewise, if a forward blasts wide,
the back will snigger and give him a wallop of his shoulder as
he turns out-field.
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never
hurt me. Like hell they won’t. At the start of the J Arthur Rank
films, a muscular man banged a bong with a sledgehammer
and we sat on the edges of the seats in the Lyric Cinema, anxiously awaiting the excitement to follow. Maybe, if we’re honest,
we don’t mind a little bit of sledging on the field too! It’s a pity
players can’t be wired up for sound, the recordings would make
interesting listening. Thankfully not all players engage thus, but
any number is too many. When the whistle blows the sledging
seems to be forgotten as jerseys are swapped, but it must be
embarrassing if the camera shows you up later