‘Kilmacud Crokes had completed what they had promised they would do; they got back to Croke Park and got the job done.’ Photo: David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile
‘Kilmacud Crokes had completed what they had promised they would do; they got back to Croke Park and got the job done.’ Photo: David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile
Having done their best to take the good out of it for the winners, the vanquished scuttled away from the mess they’d created when the penny dropped that they were starting to look like poor losers.
On Friday night Watty Graham’s Glen did a u-turn because they realised they had overplayed their hand and backed themselves into a corner by pursuing Kilmacud Crokes through the committee rooms, having not been good enough to beat them on the field of play.
Only the Kilmacud players will be able to explain how the previous ten days have felt, but rarely can a team that has won a national title have had the joy of such an achievement so contaminated by the behaviour of their beaten opponents.
And Glen did not have to go down that road. Their own team manager had provided them with the wisest counsel they needed mere minutes after the final whistle on January 22. Crokes had had a 16th man active on the pitch for 39 seconds of the last minute of injury time. Asked afterwards if Glen would appeal the result on these grounds, Malachy O’Rourke replied: “I can’t speak for the club but I don’t think that’s how the club operates. We had our chances, we gave it our best shot. That [16 players] shouldn’t happen ... but I just think we’ll accept we got beat on the day.”
Spoken like a true sportsman. O’Rourke’s gut instinct, as gut instincts often are, was truthful and realistic. He didn’t want any part of the quasi-legal charade that these adjudication processes usually become in the GAA. If only his players and the club’s officers had reacted with a similar consideration for sportsmanship. Instead, they went down the legal route and in the process cast a shadow over the Kilmacud players, and their club, just when the Dublin champions should have been celebrating their achievement with joy unconfined. Those celebratory days don’t come around very often for anyone. They are often the most precious of times in the life of a sporting community.
It would have been especially so for Crokes, given that their victory two weeks ago was the culmination of a year that had begun in grief for the harrowing way in which they lost the 2022 All-Ireland final. It must have been a shattering experience, losing at the end of extra time to a Kilcoo goal in the dying seconds. The pain of that defeat was burned on their hearts for the next 12 months.
Everything they did between then and now was done with the trauma of that result in their collective consciousness. They patently made a vow that they would right that wrong the following season; they would embark on the long, hard road back to atonement; they would have to win Dublin, Leinster, the semi-final and then the final; nothing less would do.
Glen manager Malachy O'Rourke. Photo: Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile
Therefore, one can only imagine the profound fulfilment they experienced when they made good on that vow two weeks ago. They had completed what they had promised they would do; they got back to Croke Park and got the job done. It had been a wholly admirable demonstration of resilience and unity and communal purpose.
This wider picture was lost in the controversy that erupted afterwards and that dragged on for the next 12 days. They got no credit at all for the perseverance they showed in recovering from that emotional hammer blow. Instead, the absence of empathy for their situation was compounded by the accusatory perception of them as a big-money city club which, not content with their own demographic advantage, had also imported one of the best players in Ireland, Galway’s Shane Walsh.
Of course, if Kilmacud’s part of south Dublin was a wasteland for Gaelic games, there would be no shortage of GAA diehards bitterly complaining about the place being overrun with the privileged, private school rugby bourgeoisie. Now that it’s full of the privileged GAA bourgeoisie, we’ve had plenty of begrudgers complaining about that too.
This class divide became part of the agenda too over the last week and a half: a big urban powerhouse picking on the noble, virtuous Gaels of a small outpost in rural Derry. It may even have played a part in the Glen club persuading themselves that they were victims of a travesty, cheated by a big corporation and its network of influence above in Dublin.
The irony is that there was not a scintilla of self-pity in the way they arrived into the final and proceeded to frighten the shite out of the red-hot favourites for 64 minutes. This was lost in the controversy that ensued too. Glen played superbly well on their All-Ireland final debut. They came to Croke Park not cowed by the reputation of their opponents or the scale of the occasion. This performance on the biggest stage of all only enhanced their standing in the GAA nationwide.
Then, bit by bit over the next 12 days, they began to pull the plug on that reservoir of goodwill. They could have done the magnanimous thing, as advised by O’Rourke, and allowed Kilmacud to enjoy their triumph with a heart and a half.
Maybe it was their inexperience as a club at this level of operation, maybe they just found themselves out of their depth and not quite knowing which way to turn. And maybe in these fraught circumstances they were no longer able to see the wood for the trees. Legally, they were well within their rights to appeal the result. But that’s the narrow picture. More broadly, there is the moral picture. Because as always there is a difference between what is legal and what is just. There are legal rights and wrongs, and then there is sporting right and wrong, and there is fair and unfair.
It turned out to be a strategic mistake as well as an error of judgement. Because once Kilmacud let it be known they would not entertain a replay, Glen were outflanked. They were backed into a corner. Kilmacud, the team that had been technically in breach, had manoeuvred themselves onto the moral high ground. They called Glen’s bluff; they declared that Glen could have their pound of flesh if they wanted it so badly; they could have the cup, as far as Kilmacud were concerned.
But obviously that was a complete non-runner for the complainant. Glen would not want to be handed the title in the court room — it would constitute the ultimate loss of credibility and reputation. Now that Kilmacud had thrown down the gauntlet, what was their next move going to be?
Turned out that it was not going to be particularly impressive. With their backs to the wall and the matter dragging on indefinitely, they were evidently discomfited by the position in which they found themselves. All of a sudden they were out of their depth. So, on Friday night they put up the white flag. The accompanying statement didn’t do a lot for their dignity either, not making much sense, nor showing much class either.
They had lodged an objection to the result because they believed that grounds existed for a replay. Croke Park last Tuesday upheld their appeal and granted them a replay. But by Friday night they had decided that “the club does not now believe that the opportunity is there for a replay to go ahead.” What had changed in the meantime? Nothing at all. Maybe therefore it was their own conscience that was nagging at them by then, or that they were afflicted by a growing sense of unease with the way they were looking more and more mean-spirited for resorting to litigation. It was not a good look, and it was getting worse by the day.
And having done their best to take the good out of Kilmacud’s joy, maybe they were finally too embarrassed to even wish them a belated congratulations in their statement on Friday. In fact, Glen could not bring themselves to mention their opponents at all; they could not muster the merest word of conciliation.
It presumably won’t take Kilmacud Crokes too long to get over that particular omission; the damage had already been done; they probably didn’t expect much better anyway.
