WE NEED to talk before it’s too late.
This relationship is not what it used to be. We were so happy, yet it all feels a bit empty at the moment. Maybe things have gone a bit stale, but how do we spice it up?
We just don’t talk anymore. All we get is silence, and it’s heartbreaking.
Look at the League of Ireland lads up the road, and how happy they all are.
Valentine’s day was the perfect place to start, even if Tolka Park went dark during Shelbournes’ 3-1 win over Derry.
A fan who worked for the ESB checked it all out, and a few phone calls later it was all sorted as the Drumcondra crowd revelled in the banter.
They rocked into the Aviva in their droves on Sunday to watch Bohs beat Shamrock Rovers 1-0 in the biggest derby of them all, ever – 33,208 of them to be exact.
Domestic soccer is thriving and the love between fan, player and club is all mutual – because they communicate with each other. There’s a mutual respect.
The clubs care, and the League of Ireland is sexy again. The game is laced with characters and colour, from Damien Duff’s blockbuster interviews to Rovers’ dream run in Europe.
Michael Noonan wrote himself into the history books as the youngest ever scorer in European competition when his strike gave the Hoops a famous 1-0 win in Molde last week. He had school the next morning.
Say what you like about former Irish manager Stephen Kenny, but domestic football was always going to be the next port of call for the St. Patrick’s Athletic boss after things didn’t work out on the national stage.
The stories are endless every week, and it’s not confined to the capital either.
Respective fan bases have fallen in love with Galway United and Cork City all over again after turbulent times at both clubs.
Sligo Rovers and Derry City have always survived on the basis of a hardcore fan base in towns where soccer was always king, but the whole thing is back in vogue.
Danny Grant, Roberto Lopes (Shamrock Rovers), Connor Parsons (Bohs), and Aidan Keena (St. Pat’s) have all appeared in these pages in the past week alone.
The majority of League of Ireland players are free to speak to the media as they please, with no constraints.
Fans are given an insight into their personalities, and their faces are growing ever familiar all the time to the general public.
Our olympians and rugby players are the same, and that is why they are stealing the hearts and minds of the Irish people.
But let’s go back to the silence – that awful culture that has seeped into the GAA psyche and is breaking our hearts.
We want to make this work. This is not media whinging – because it’s the public and the association as a whole who really lose out.
The national leagues began with a whimper last month. There was an impromptu launch the day beforehand over zoom (this was because of the storm,) but it was all too little, too late.
For years, a lot of counties have refused to let their players conduct interviews after games, hiding them away behind the door of paranoia.
Of course, there are exceptions. In 2017, the Waterford hurlers under Derek McGrath spoke freely to the press as they pleased.
It didn’t do them any harm, as they reached the All-Ireland final that summer for the first time in nine years.
The Monaghan footballers have largely been the same. Conor McManus was always happy to take a call in between winning All-Stars and strutting his stuff as a legend of the game.
There are plenty of other examples, of course. But more and more managers are pulling the shutters down around their panels.
MEDIA DUTIES
In fairness to the Dublin players who won an historic six All-Irelands in a row, they were all happy to engage with the media – when they were allowed to.
Their interviews were often pleasant and engaging, from Jack McCaffrey to Paul Mannion and James McCarthy to Michael Darragh Macauley. All great characters, but those chats were just far too rare.
Tyrone stopper Niall Morgan gave a fantastic interview last week that features in this edition, but none of his team-mates were allowed to talk after their loss to Mayo on Sunday.
The general public are starting to wake up. Under-16 tickets are €5 and no longer free, which has dischentated the ground troops even more.
Match programmes are redundant, as reams of changes and additions to the bench are announced minutes before throw-in.
It happened in Donegal on Sunday when Michael Murphy was added to the subs.
This huge news should have been heralded all week, but was communicated just 14 minutes before throw-in.
The same thing occurred before Mayo’s win over Tyrone with Aidan O’Shea’s return to the bench announced minutes before the game was due to start.
The attendance at the game was 6,029 – less than half of the 12,218 that attended the same Division 1 fixture in 2023.
The PA also announced that anyone who left the ground would have to buy another ticket if they wanted to get back in. Tone deaf.
It doesn’t have to be this way, but unrequited love eventually forces you to move on.
