There is no appetite in GAA to take away Dublin’s advantages
THE need to level the playing field in the GAA is not just exclusive to gender. This week Jim McGuinness, in his role as Sky Sports headline pundit, cast his educated eye over football’s knock-out race – which will be put under starter’s orders before the end of this month – and surprised nobody in predicting which team would be left standing.
Perhaps he created more of a stir in declaring that he could see a certain likeness between his team of Sam Maguire Cup winners in 2012 and Dublin’s all-conquering team of champions. McGuinness made the case that both teams shared a huge work ethic, reflected in their collective ability to defend.
Dublin have taken it to another level because of the sheer quality and quantity of talent they possess, but another summer which is likely to validate their status of being football’s greatest team comes against the backdrop of growing discontent at advantages that have been conferred on the capital.
Former Westmeath star and barrister John Connellan revealed last month that up to 20 counties will debate a motion backing his campaign for a more equitable distribution of central funding – the bulk of which has gone to Dublin for over a decade – but while that might provide some long-term redress, there is a more obvious advantage that continues to go unchecked.
Former Galway manager Kevin Walsh argued earlier this year that the dilution of Croke Park from a national stadium to Dublin’s home pitch is worth up to six points a game to the champions.
While McGuinness was unaware of Walsh’s assertion, it is a sentiment he shares.
‘I think we all know the answer to that because we have all played for our own clubs and if you are playing for your club at home against a team that are at a similar level to yourself, you expect to win the game,’ suggested the Donegalman.
‘So with Dublin you are playing a team that is better than anyone else and they are playing at home so, of course, there is definitely an advantage there. There is no doubt about that. Those boys know nothing else. They are as comfortable walking in that door as they are walking in their own front door at home. That is the reality.
‘And that was the great thing about Kerry, way down through the years people would say that they could walk into Croke Park and own it, which was a phenomenal psychological place to be.
‘In terms of Kevin’s quote, I have not read it but it does not take a rocket scientist to work out that home is home and you feel comfortable and relaxed as if you own the place and that is an advantage obviously,’ said McGuinness, who was speaking at this week’s launch of Sky Sports’ Championship schedule.
Establishing the value of home comfort is the easy part, after all Donegal went unbeaten in Ballybofey for eight years – including the four seasons McGuinness was in charge – until Tyrone ended that run in 2018.
Doing something about it is not so easy.
When Dublin go to Breffni Park next Saturday evening to take on Donegal in an Allianz League Division 1 semi-final, they will go down a road not travelled by their predecessors in 30 years by playing a fourth consecutive game outside the capital.
But this season is an outlier – in part because of the loss of home advantage for their League tie against Kerry for that well publicised breach of collective training during lockdown – Dublin had played a remarkable 115 out of 159 games at home in a run from 2010 on.
That amounts to home advantage in 72 per cent of all their games – in effect three out of every four – and even that figure is understated by the reality that 100 per cent of their biggest games are all played at Croke Park.
Taking Dublin’s League games out of Croke Park would go some way to reducing those numbers and even playing All-Ireland semifinals at provincial venues might provide some sense of fairness, but McGuinness believe those who seek reform are waging a forlorn war.
‘The chances of that happening, or anything happening, pertaining to Dublin just don’t exist.
‘So many of these things get raised all the time. There is no appetite to make life difficult for Dublin.
‘Dublin are the number one team, they are the number one brand, they are the number one cash cow… all those things filter into a situation where at the higher levels of administration there is no appetite to level the playing field and make life uncomfortable for Dublin.
‘It just does not exist. If it did, it would have happened before now. They have won 19 Leinster Championships in a row (they have won 15 in 16 years). That would be like us playing Tyrone in Omagh, every single game in Omagh in the Ulster Championship for 19 years,’ he insisted.
If losing count on Dublin’s success is understandable, given the tidal wave of blue brilliance that has washed over the game, then perhaps so is the resignation that effecting change within the GAA can feel as futile as banging your head against a brick wall.
He was around to see the introduction of the black card in football, but since then that rule has been extended for specific fouls within the 20-metre line, there has been a curtailment of short-kick outs, a tweaking of the advantage rule and, last but hardly least, the introduction of an advance mark that rewards any player who collects a ball that has travelled 20 metres, with a free kick at the posts.
He looks at that change through a jaundiced lens, but questions the point of making the argument in an echo chamber.
‘You just get a bit despondent,’ he reflects.
‘I think we are taking from other sports all the time. It is our sport and we should be proud of that and I don’t believe that all the changes were necessary on one hand, and I am not sure if they have not been beneficial either.
‘You don’t want to sound negative because it is just put out there in the ether that is the case, but from my own point of view and from listening to other people, listening to managers who are listening to players, listening to pundits, there is a kind of universal agreement around that. But, in the same context I answered the question about Dublin playing at home, it does not really matter.
‘It does not seem to resonate, or get the traction, or have the voice you would expect it to get so you just have to try and deal with it. You have to suck it up and deal with it,’ he concluded.
‘THEY ARE THE NUMBER ONE TEAM – THEY ARE THE GAA’S CASH COW’