Already the Hollywood movie moguls have been burning up the satellites and the transatlantic cables, making deals and signing up screenwriters and actors for the next big blockbuster, reports An Fear Rua …

The modern day successors of Sam Goldwyn are L.A. pool-side, martini in one hand, barking down cell phones to harassed underlings: ‘Whaddaya mean ya can’t get that mudda fucka Cregan on da phone?! I want ya ta find him and get him signed up today! Dat guy is a genius. And I don’t want no voibal contract neither. Ya hear me?!!!’

In the tinseltown world of the movies, ever-voracious for novel storylines and ticket sellouts, news of something big travels fast. No sooner had the word broken that Eamon Cregan wanted back in as manager of Limerick senior hurlers, having resigned on a point of principle only forty-eight hours earlier, than the Hollywood agents knew they were onto something that could be up there with ‘Gone With The Wind’ or ‘The Ten Commandments’. Some of the Hollywood lads, who’ve seen quite a few twisted plots in their day, were dumbfounded in admiration at the many unexpected twists and turns in the saga of Eamon, The Dual Players and the County Board…. The late night meetings … the On/Off/On again mysteries and so on. ‘If Cregan goes on like this, he’ll end up with more comebacks than even Frank Sinatra’, said one admiring Hollywood gossip columnist.

Some see similarities with the American teenage horror movie genre, ones like ‘Halloween VI’. You know the kind of one where some dark mysterious monster stalks the High School teenagers throughout the film only to be killed in the end exploding in a blaze of fire while falling from the top of a twenty storey building. Dead as a doornail. Except, that is, until version II comes along, when – mysteriously – he reappears at the start again, makes another complete nuisance of himself throughout, and ends this film encased in chains and dipped in a vat of burning nitric acid. Dead as a doornail. Except, that is, until film III comes along, when – mysteriously – he reappears at start again … You get the idea. All the way up to version V or VI, depending on how bad the studio’s finances are or how gullible the cinema goers are.

Others think the real comparison is with one of those Westerns where the bad guy strolls nonchalantly into the saloon, spurs jangling, challenges the Marshal to a draw, takes careful aim and shoots … himself, in both feet! ... while a bunch of sodbusters from Patrickswell look on imperturbably. Whatever the genre, speculation about who will play the part of Cregan is mounting already. The obvious frontrunners are the likes of Mel Gibson, Tom Hanks, Harrison Ford or Kevin Costner. However, insiders claim that, in view of Cregan’s performance to date, a better bet might be Woody Allen.

Given the largely masculine world of GAA, especially down Limerick way, even the most inventive Hollywood scriptwriter will be hard-pressed to get a romantic angle into the story, though ‘box office’ demands that this must be so. Demi Moore may be persuaded to squeeze her ample curves into a camogie outfit and take a hurley – or something similar – into her hands. As some of the Gowlnacalley-John Redmonds boyos remarked, the same Demi would need very little encouragement to squeeze out of her camogie outfit, at the drop of an umpire’s flag, or quicker than you could mutter ‘Fógra Speisialta’. Ah, just a million dollars and a script that ‘required nudity for artistic reasons’ should do the trick.

The theme song, of course, will present no problem. Dermot O’Leary and The Bards have been commissioned to re-vamp their old hit of some years back. You know the one that goes:
Eamon stepped out .... and Mossie stepped in again ...
Mossie stepped out .... and Eamon stepped in again ...
The night they were dancing down Lim-er-ick way ...

Indeed, if the Limerick hurlers are even half as nimble footed this year as their managers, selectors and county board officials there'll be no stopping them!

Whatever about the enjoyment such an epic would bring to cinema audiences, the real losers in this drama – or should that be charade? – are the Limerick senior hurling team and their long-suffering supporters. Just as they were doing nicely in the League, in a year when it looked like they had an improving chance of a major championship breakthrough, along comes a nonsensical farce about a non-issue that a little bit of pragmatism and/or common sense could easily have resolved.

With the best will in the world, how can any of the participants in this hurling ‘B movie’ expect to see the wounds healed and a proper focus re-generated on League and championship success? At one stroke, players and managers alike have put enormous pressure on themselves to perform and deliver this year and set themselves up as the cock shots of 2002 for every other team. Anything less than a Munster championship and All Ireland victory and this episode will have been in vain. An Fear Rua is a hurling man through and through and has long been critical of the tendency in most counties of Dis Great Assosheeayshun Of Ours to favour football over hurling and to force excellent hurlers to become merely good footballers. It is ironic, then, that one of the most visible county ‘bust ups’ of recent years is actually based on the opposite of the norm – a defence of hurling over football. In that respect, An Fear Rua has a certain grudging admiration for the line taken by Cregan. However, that aspect does not make the episode any more palatable to AFR.

Throughout, as has often been his wont in the past, Eamon Cregan has behaved with all the tactical finesse of a World War II Kamikaze pilot. Maybe that’s why the Hollywood moguls are already toying with a suitable title for the film … ‘Pearl Harbor II’ …

’Vote On It! Poll:
"Cregan Controversy": Should county boards insist on dual players playing both hurling and football in the championship?
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