The GAA, Where We All Belong. Or so the marketing jargon goes.
Ask the Down hurlers what that slogan means to them after the weekend. Ask the Kildare hurlers. Ask the Mayo hurlers. The London hurlers. Louth hurlers. Fermanagh hurlers.
The four National Football League finals were played at Croke Park last weekend, two on Saturday, two on Sunday.
The Division 1A and 1B National Hurling League deciders will take place at a sold-out Páirc Uí Chaoimh next Sunday.
But the lower tier league hurling finals were played way off-Broadway over the weekend, down a boreen, hidden so far from sight that you’d wonder if part of the challenge was to locate the venue in the first place.
The Division 2 decider between Down and Kildare was played at Grattan Park in Inniskeen.
Now, anybody who has been lucky enough to catch a game at the Monaghan venue in recent years will tell you how wonderful the set-up is at Grattan Park. But the pitch didn’t even have 65-metre lines marked last Saturday.
Somewhere along the way the GAA dropped the small ball on that one.
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The Division 3 decider took place in Hawkfield, where Mayo beat London. Again, Hawkfield is a fine facility but it is essentially Kildare GAA’s training centre.
The Division 4 final was played at St Mellan’s Park, Truagh, in Monaghan. Kudos to Truagh Gaels for hosting the fixture but is it an appropriate venue for a national final?
Now, all of this might well have passed by with little or no fuss, but the decision of Fermanagh manager Joe Baldwin and his Louth counterpart Trevor Hilliard to conduct their post-match interviews standing side by side helped shine a light.
The interview was captured by The Fermanagh Herald and posted online. As of Monday morning it has been seen by over 160,000 on Twitter/X. Rarely has a Division 4 final sparked such interest. Hidden away but in plain sight.
“Why is this game not in Croke Park?” asked Baldwin. “Somebody come out and tell me. These players here work equally as hard, it doesn’t matter that they are wearing the red of Louth or the green of Fermanagh, not the red of Cork or the green of Limerick, these boys put in serious work and it’s really disappointing.”
Standing at Baldwin’s right shoulder was Hilliard. “Fair play to Truagh Gaels for accepting the game, never mind anything else,” started the Louth manager.
“We had no fourth official today, we are out then on a Gaelic (football) field. It’s a wee bit demoralising why this isn’t in Croke Park. We put the exact same work in as everyone else, you can come and give us whatever answers you want, but if you want to come and develop our game in the country then you’ve got to bloody take teams like Fermanagh, like Louth, like Warwickshire, it doesn’t matter, you won’t develop unless you take these finals to Croke Park.
“We feel awfully disappointed. I said I wouldn’t say anything about this until after today’s game and I’m telling you now it is very disheartening for every one of them boys on both teams here today.”
Down the road, the Mourne County battled out a 4-22 to 3-18 victory over Kildare to claim the Division 2 title on Saturday. Later that night, manager Ronan Sheehan posted photos of the cup arriving back to the Ards Peninsula, Down’s hurling heartland.
Sheehan has poured so much of his life into the cause of Down hurling. Saturday’s victory provided some reward for that work and dedication.
However, in his post-match interview Sheehan too was compelled to talk about the choice of venue.
“Look, the pitch here is fantastic, they put a lot of effort into it, it’s a good field and all but you saw the quality of the match there today, that should be in a far greater setting than here,” said Sheehan.
“Listen, we’ve been here a long time, we’ve been waiting for this, but my view of these things is always more about the bigger picture for hurling.
“That’s what annoys me more than anything else – the disrespect to the game, as opposed to the disrespect for this group, or whatever. It’s more that the game of hurling deserves better.”
Sheehan indicated that Breffni Park had been the initial choice of venue but due to the condition of the pitch he was against staging the game there.
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And, of course, it is easy for all of us to be critical of fixtures and venue choices. Many county grounds had activities booked in last weekend, so it’s not as simple as just fixing a league hurling final for a neutral venue – grounds aren’t just sitting there waiting to be used.
If we are being honest, lower tier hurling finals aren’t exactly massive crowd pullers either – there are plenty in Louth and Fermanagh and Down who couldn’t care less about the fortunes of their hurlers.
But the soul of the GAA should not be about putting bums on seats. Getting hurls in hands, now that’s another story.
The attendance at Saturday’s Croke Park double-header (Limerick v Wexford, Monaghan v Roscommon) was just 11,450. Would adding a hurling league final to the bill have been such an imposition?
For hurling managers like Baldwin, Hilliard and Sheehan, last weekend was merely another example of a perceived two-tier system in which football is the preferred child.
Ultimately, it doesn’t much matter now for this year.
Louth beat Fermanagh, by the way. But the sight of the two opposing managers standing side by side afterwards for a common cause is likely to be what will be remembered.
Indeed, the biggest outcome from that final might well only be realised next year.
