Croker closure is a mistake

So the IRFU’s time at Croke Park has ended on a somewhat sad note with the defeat by Scotland and the failure to claim the Triple Crown but this disappointment will be nothing compared to what the GAA must be feeling as they look at the accounts.

Since Croke Park finally opened its doors to ‘foreign sports’ back in February 2007 after years of political debate about the issue, it has been a revelation for Irish sport.

The GAA received a massive cash injection thanks to deals done with the IRFU and the FAI as well as any additional gate receipts they took as part of the deal.

The amount the GAA is reportedly to have raised by allowing the use of their stadium is €36million, and this came at a time of financial recession.

It also gave the GAA a use for Croke Park in the winter months when it is rarely used.

If the GAA had not been so stubborn over the past decade, and had they not voted no to a change in ‘Rule 42’ (a rule that only allows GAA sports to be played on GAA grounds) in 2001, then we may have continued to see rugby and soccer played at the country’s best stadium in the future.

The IRFU and FAI were forced to plan the redevelopment of the crumbling Lansdowne Road after the collapse of the Irish governments plan for a national arena and the GAA’s stance on the use of their headquarters.

They spent millions of Euros that could have been reinvested in developing both sports and building a smaller stadium that would be suited to hosting less glamorous internationals, AIB Cup finals,FAI Cup finals, etc.

Instead we will have the Aviva Stadium, no doubt a fine ground, but it’s 50,000 capacity is too big for the above mentioned finals and too small for Six Nations rugby and crucial soccer qualifiers.

In the past four years, rugby in Ireland has grown dramatically in popularity due to the success of the national team, and Croke Park was the venue as Ireland picked up their first Grand Slam in 61 years as Ireland beat France, England and Italy at GAA headquarters in 2009.

The fact that 82,000 people could watch those events obviously helped raise the interest in the game, while also creating a much louder atmosphere. The smaller attendance in the Aviva Stadium will obviously make it more difficult for fans to get to games and what the atmosphere will be like in the redeveloped, and so called ‘spiritual home', remains to be seen.

The same goes for soccer, while it has always been a popular game in Ireland, the move to Croke Park has allowed many more fans experience a competitive home international match rather than just a meaningless friendly when tickets were more easily available at the old Lansdowne Road. Maybe that chance helped young fans to become more proud of their country’s football team and not just the big English clubs they support.

However, it is not the fault of the IRFU or the FAI that this has happened. Some have said more pressure from them on the GAA may have helped to keep Croke Park open to other sports but it would have been too late - the redevelopment had begun, the investment was made and the GAA had made its bed when the success of the move had become apparent.

Obviously, the GAA would have had to vote again on the issue but given the success of the past few years, it is unlikely they would have said no.

The GAA has shot itself in the foot. They may say they have not budgeted for the additional income from international events but the fact of the matter is rugby and soccer internationals created a massive amount of revenue and also indirectly increased the popularity of Gaelic Games.

When fans travelled from different countries to watch their nations do battle with Irish rugby and soccer teams at Croke Park, many returned to visit the stadium’s museum and no doubt grew to appreciate the importance of GAA to Ireland’s culture.

So now when the likes of Kerry, Kilkenny, Cork and Dublin are not bringing the crowds to Croke Park then the GAA will have to turn to Westlife and Bono rather than Brian O’Driscoll and Robbie Keane to keep the money rolling in at Headquarters.

And it’s a shame that they would rather glitzy pop stars swagger in front of Hill 16 rather than Irish sporting heroes competing against the world's best.

Jealousy is a terrible thing

Last weekend saw one of Ireland’s greatest sporting achievements, as our rugby boys clinched a long-awaited Six Nations Grand Slam.

I don’t claim to be a huge rugby fan, however, I wouldn’t consider myself jumping on the bandwagon of our recent success as I remember watching, as a child in the early nineties, Ireland pick up their fair share of wooden spoons so I have been there for the bad times as well.

After one of the most tense sporting occasions I have witnessed in recent times, I felt proud of our rugby team and more importantly I felt proud for my country.

So your probably thinking where is this going? Well here’s my point, strangely the small shop around the corner from my flat stocks The Sunday World, an Irish Sunday tabloid newspaper that I always read back home (I live in Preston if you don’t know).

So on Sunday morning, bleary-eyed from the night before, I went to pick up the paper expecting celebration pictures, the match report from an undoubtedly ecstatic rugby correspondent and in-depth analysis from the experts.

All of which I did find but after being engrossed in the four or five pages of rugby I found myself through to the GAA pages (Gaelic Football and Hurling for our English readers) where I would expect them to report the sport that was in the shadow for that day.

What I did find shocked me and proved to me the amount of bitterness that lies in some quarters of the GAA world towards Ireland’s successful international sports.

Pat Spillane, a GAA pundit and schoolteacher, described in his weekly column how he felt that the skill and excitement of rugby played the day before was no better than a Junior League Gaelic Football match.

For those of you who don’t know the GAA system the level he was suggesting is roughly the standard of Sunday League football in England, maybe the lower levels of non-league if it was two top teams.

Spillane then went on to suggest that rugby has had an advantage of being a professional sport with money to hire coaches to come to schools where GAA is lacking.

Well, that is there own fault, first of all the GAA’s ignorance towards professional sport has left them behind on some fronts of development of young players. Secondly the GAA can afford to pay coaches to travel to schools to teach rugby, they just don’t want to cough up.

The pundit did mention that he was supporting the Irish team in their success but that he doesn’t see the appeal of rugby as a sport. I’m sorry but you won’t find many things as thrilling as a player having one kick that could either win the game or lose it, which is the position Wales’ Stephen Jones found himself in at the death last Saturday.

There’s also the charge Ireland made straight after the Welsh drop-goal, not exciting? Try telling that to the Irish fans that nearly took the roof off the Millennium Stadium when Ronan O’Gara returned Ireland’s lead with his drop-goal.

Nevermind the skill or the excitement, it doesn’t matter what sport it is, for a small nation with limited resources everyone should be proud of success whether it be rugby, soccer, GAA or even tiddlywinks.

The fact that Spillane would begrudge rugby their day before our summer is full of ‘his’ GAA is nothing short of disgraceful. Shame on him.