A lot of what passes for analysis of Gaelic games in the 'meeja' is very dubious stuff altogether…

One might gather from some of the coverage of the Laois/Dublin Leinster football semi-final that the midlanders had played the Dubs off the park. Admittedly, they did play well in patches, but the fact remains that Dublin created a lot more clearcut scoring chances but simply couldn’t take them. This indicates that, territorially, Dublin were the better team, but Laois were much more efficient in making their more limited scoring chances tell.

Similarly, a lot of the coverage of the Clare/Galway hurling qualifier focused on what might have happened if Seanie McMahon or Colin Lynch had been playing, and on the hard luck for Clare that the game was played on Saturday rather than the following day, when McMahon would have been eligible to play. This would have been irrelevant if the GAA were to come into the 20th century and impose suspensions for a certain number of games rather than a certain time period, which is wide open to all sorts of injustices.

The other focus of meeja attention in the Clare/Galway game was the differing fortunes of the late frees taken by Rory Gantly and Niall Gilligan. However, the fact is that Clare should not have been depending on this late free to survive the game. Over the 70 minutes they were guilty of far too many bad misses – An Moltóir counted ten in all to just five for Galway. More tellingly, four of these misses came in the last ten minutes when Clare could have been pulling away rather than struggling to survive.

So the point is that, even without McMahon, Hoey and Lynch, Clare created sufficient chances to win this game reasonably comfortably. However, like the Dublin footballers, they simply did not derive enough benefit from these chances. So, it was not just a hard luck story of a narrow miss by Gilligan at the death. Instead, it was a reprise of a situation which we have seen often enough in recent years, where Clare have been unable to take advantage of plenty of good forward possession.

Not a Good Game
Overall, despite the closeness of the scores, this was not a good game. There was an inordinate amount of bunching, and the sight of groups of players all trying in vain to lift the ball in such situations was truly pathetic. Generations of Kilkenny hurlers, or the great Offaly hurlers of the eighties and nineties – masters of the well-directed flick in such tight situations – must have been laughing into their cocoa at the sight of such unbecoming groping and poking. Yet one could understand the preoccupation with lifting the ball, as some of the attempts at ground striking by players on both sides were absolutely atrocious.

Overall, Galway appeared to have the tidier hurlers, and their greater scoring economy from more limited chances tends to bear this out. Tony Óg Regan seems to have the makings of a good one, and Fergus Healy had a solid game in his new role as a halfback. His opposite number, Tony Carmody, hardly hit a ball from start to finish, and the wonder was that he was allowed to remain on the park for so long. Galway also seemed to have the better subs, with Ollie Fahy and Alan Kerins both doing well when they came on. Conor Hayes also moved quickly to tackle weaknesses, as with the switch between Hodgins and Regan and the substitution of Cathal Moore by Ollie Fahy. Yet the fact remains that Clare had the chances to win this game, and the penalty for not doing so is that a county which just two short weeks ago was being talked about as potential All-Ireland winners are now out of the competition altogether.

Referee 'bottled it
Aodán Mac Suibhne’s performance as match referee also pointed again to a key weakness in Gaelic games culture. Having been yellow-carded in the first half, Frank Lohan should have walked for cynically bringing Damien Hayes down in the 59th minute. It was clearly a bookable offence, but Mac Suibhne gibbed the inevitable consequence which would have been a sending off. Lohan fouled Hayes again in the 70th minute, but again the referee took no further action apart from awarding a free. It is also a mystery how Brian Lohan escaped scot-free for his frontal assault on the same Damien Hayes after 50 minutes. Even more amazingly, Mac Suibhne then threw in the ball having previously signalled for a free for Galway.

Another Canning Nightmare
Bad and all as Mac Suibhne’s performance was, even it paled into insignifance compared with another nightmare broadcasting commentary from Ger Canning. Repeatedly he was unable to identify players accurately on the field, either misnaming them or failing to name them at all. Admittedly it can be difficult to tell some players apart, especially on a sunny day, but there can be no excuse for mistaking a player who wears a helmet, such as Conor Plunkett, with one who doesn’t, such as Diarmuid McMahon. Even worse than his ability to identify players is Canning’s inability to notice what is going on on the field to play. Again, he repeatedly gives the wrong reason as to why frees have been awarded. He completely missed the slap with the hurley which earned Clare their fateful missed last-minute free, and sympathised with the Galway protests against the awarding of the free. And he ended up sounding really silly when he remarked about a player looking like his father, when the camera was showing another player altogether!

Listening to Daragh Moloney’s commentary on the Dublin/Laois football game showed clearly that much more professional commentators are available to RTE if they would only use them. Moloney may have a touch of John Motson’s style, but he knows his players, sounds enthusiastic and maintains a flowing commentary. Canning’s tiresome and idiotic remarks, inability to see what is going on, and regular misidentifying of players are the kinds of distraction which genuine fans simply need like a hole in the head. It is a sure reflection of RTE’s quality standards that he is being persevered with.