There has been something of a campaign recently on this website to have RTE’s Ger Canning, if not publicly hanged, drawn and quartered, at least politely asked to go back to what was once his day job or perhaps take up a more suitable career such as a silent monk on Sceilg Mhichíl…

An Moltóir knows of some GAA fans who personally attend each Sunday’s big game simply in order to avoid having to listen to Ger’s commentaries on TV. The alternative favoured by some - turning down the TV and listening to Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh’s radio commentary - isn’t really satisfactory due to RTE’s annoying tendency to break into exciting phases of play to tell us the results of some tiddlywinks tournament in Outer Mongolia in which the Irish team finished last. Alternatively, our ‘national’ radio station (whose Sports Department seems to be populated entirely by Manchester United maniacs and Formula One fanatics) appears to think that the awarding of penalties is an opportune time for a commercial break. An Moltóir cannot understand how any company would risk the ire of half a million frustrated listeners by advertising their wares in the middle of a dingdong sporting contest.

But getting back to Ger Canning, is An Moltóir mistaken in reckoning that he has reached new depths in commentating ineptitude this year? It is difficult to believe at time that his monitor is showing the same images as are coming up on the TV screen, and his biases have never been more blatant. But last Sunday he took the biscuit altogether by referring to the quality of the playing surface in Páirc Uí Chaoimh in glowing, nay, hyperbolic terms. Now An Moltóir realises that Cork people have an irrational fondness for the Bog by the Lee, but watching desperate Limerick and Tipperary hurlers vainly searching for a few blades of grass on which to place the sliotar for sideline cuts last Sunday was both painful and laughable. And then the bould Ger has the nerve to chide the poor unfortunates for poor striking! Has he ever played a bunker shot himself in golf?

Overall, the quality of the game last Sunday was severely handicapped by the woeful standard of the playing surface. Players attempting to lift the ball repeatedly ended up with half the Sahara on the bas of their hurleys and the ball left behind them. Ground striking was a gamble and the quick roll lift an impossibility. Bunching was as frequent as it was inevitable. And to think that, sixty miles up the road, the Munster Council has the finest hurling pitch in the country, located in a stadium which takes 12,000 more spectators and is infinitely more accessible (and safer) than Páirc Uí Chaoimh.

An Moltóir wonders if there is anyone at all in the God-help-us Association of Amateurs (i.e. the GAA) who is prepared to stand up and scream that Gaelic games do not simply exist for Cork’s benefit and Frank Murphy’s greater glory.

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