GPA's latest scam

Started by Eamonnca1, September 12, 2013, 10:47:20 PM

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Eamonnca1

QuoteDonal Óg Cusack on hurling mission to the Americans

Gavin Cummiskey, Irish Times

Wed, Sep 11, 2013, 01:00

First rule of hurling is you do not talk about hurling. Donal Óg Cusack is determined to alter that notion by promoting the game away from these shores.

"I believe last Sunday was living, breathing poetry and why not show it off to the world?" the Gaelic Players Association chairman said yesterday.

"The GPA have a strategy for the US, with the support of the GAA, built around creating a stronger network of supporters and raising the profile of our games and our players and generating an income stream from the US."

Cusack went before the top brass of the association recently with two ideas to expand hurling's horizon.

One is the Freestyle Hurler campaign on YouTube. The other was announced yesterday in Croke Park with heavyweight support from Notre Dame University and Aer Lingus.

11-a-side

The Celtic Champions Classic will be an 11-aside hurling tournament on Notre Dame's South Bend campus in Indiana, at the Lacrosse stadium on October 19th, just hours before The Fighting Irish face their "arch rivals" USC. In American Football, not hurling.

A Cusack stance or idea tends to create instant debate. (Some are still trying to get their head around the proposed change in colour of the sliotar to luminous yellow. Optometrist Valerie Kelly convinced us of the merits.)

The New York board turned down the chance to host a major hurling match this year. Instead they wanted dollars to do up Gaelic Park in the Bronx.

"But that's a very good point; if you could bring big championship games, get them on the networks over there, and show it to people who have never seen the game before."

The Jesuits undertook similar missions in the 16th and 17th centuries, scrambling over the Iguazu Falls to bring Christianity to the Guaraní natives.

Many a fine priest of the GAA will carry the load, but in Cusack, the GPA (The association's Jesuit order) have their very own Rodrigo Mendoza.

Cusack is adamant the Celtic Champions Classic will not be exhibition hurling in the All Star touring mould.

"We were having country-wide trials but now we've split up into the Leinster conference and Munster conference. We'll be announcing the managers in the next while . . . it's all inter-county lads."

The actual rules then:

No points, only goals

"You can strike as many times as you want in sequence but you can't hand-pass more than once. No points, only goals. Goals are a different shape. There is a goal scoring zone. Inside of it, you get three points. If you score from outside of it, it's five points. Doubling on the ball gets you an extra point.

"There is a time limit on, once you gain possession so you need to offload a shot in 30 seconds."

It's also proposed the 11- a-side format can act as a "testing ground" for new rules.

"Might work, mightn't work. But at least you're going to have a cut off it," says Cusack.

"There will be a lot of people that day in Notre Dame that won't have seen the game of hurling. Those who saw the game last Sunday were going away saying 'Jesus, why haven't we seen this game before'. It's something special, something unique."

'This the game I have been telling you about,' two-time Oscar winner Tom Hanks reportedly yelled across the Shannon airport bar to his two sons as the Galway and Limerick minors drew scimitars last month.
"There are 40 million Irish-Americans or people in America of Irish descent," Cusack continued.

"Even if you got, in one season, 10 per cent more of those people watching the games, wouldn't that be some target to aim for?"

'Missionary spirit'

"Hurling is a game that needs to be promoted," said GAA president Liam O'Neill. "The sort of missionary spirit that you hear every time Donal Óg opens his mouth is really impressive, isn't it?

"He came up with this concept, came to us with it and we said let's try it out. What's the worst that can happen?"

Cusack is joined on the organising committee by GAA games director Pat Daly, former Galway selector Mattie Kenny, former Cork and Limerick manager Donal O'Grady and Tom Barry of Kilmacud Crokes.

Sounds good, right?  Well before we all start singing the praises of this, let's take a closer look.

With no uprights or points as well as the other rule changes, this is a fundamentally different game from GAA-regulation hurling.  This creates a rival version of the game that seems to have been designed by a focus group.  So now when first-time viewers google for hurling they're going to find two versions of the game and not know which is which, undermining our efforts to spread the word of the game.

Nobody in America, who has actual experience of promoting the game here, was consulted on this.  The hurling clubs and the GAA in America has been completely sidelined by this. They were neither consulted nor informed about it. My board has been promoting the game on US college campuses since about 2007 and the first we got to hear about this was through the media yesterday. The first the North American Board Chairman got to hear about it was when I rang him yesterday.

If anybody in America had been consulted, we'd have been able to tell Mr Cusack et al that hurling is well able to be promoted in America in its present form with minimal modifications.  We play 13-a-side on short fields and it's not a problem, particularly in the lower entry-level grades.  We'd have been able to tell them that what they're planning is a really bad idea and can hurt us rather than help us.

Cusack has openly admitted that this is about raising money for the GPA, or "creating revenues" as he likes to call it in his corporate-speak.  Any money raised by this is going to go into the pockets of the GPA and taken back to Ireland, not a penny of it is going to be seen by hurling clubs in America.

It's as if they sat down and had the gall to say "let's go across the water and promote hurling, and let's not bother our heads speaking to anybody in America who might have been doing just that for years, because what would they know compared to such big-shots as us?"  Even more galling is that the GAA senior management has collaborated with them, helped them to develop this behind our backs, and kept us out of the loop all the way through to the press release.

I can tell you now that the backlash has started already.  The hurling clubs in America are not happy about this, and rightly so. The excrement is forcefully striking the electrically-powered air circulation device.

Catch and Kick

Agree 100%. Local units should be the vehicle for any development abroad

DuffleKing


Eamonnca1

This is just like what the GPA did in New York last year. Marched on in bragging about how they were going to raise millions of dollars, completely ignored the local New York GAA community, pocketed the money, and marched back home with their pockets full.  Zero value added to the game or any international growth in it.

Syferus

Quote from: Eamonnca1 on September 12, 2013, 11:21:49 PM
This is just like what the GPA did in New York last year. Marched on in bragging about how they were going to raise millions of dollars, completely ignored the local New York GAA community, pocketed the money, and marched back home with their pockets full.  Zero value added to the game or any international growth in it.

When they helped out in the rebuild or something else? 'Cause that was a very good move for both Ireland as a country and the GAA's profile in the States.

Everyone wants their slice of the pie and I doubt the US clubs are any less prone to clangers than the GAA or GPA.

orangeman

Jesus Eamonnca1 I can't believe you'd have thought for a minute that the GAA - Gpa people would have bothered to speak with you.

You don't count. You're just doing the donkey work - what is referred to as the famous grassroots who are the lifeblood of the association blah de blah de blah.

So get on with it and keep the head down and don't be so naive in future.

Eamonnca1


Eamonnca1

Quote from: orangeman on September 12, 2013, 11:38:28 PM
Jesus Eamonnca1 I can't believe you'd have thought for a minute that the GAA - Gpa people would have bothered to speak with you.

You don't count. You're just doing the donkey work - what is referred to as the famous grassroots who are the lifeblood of the association blah de blah de blah.

So get on with it and keep the head down and don't be so naive in future.

;D

Ciarrai_thuaidh

Never realised what a bastardised version of hurling this thing was about Eamonnca..you're right to raise this issue..have seen videos (mainly from anycraic and the likes) and heard all about the promotion hurling has been getting for the last few years over there. Colleges in California, Texas etc taking up the game and novices saying how much they love it. Bit rich for Donal Óg to swan in with this shite now (although in general for a Cork man he isn't too bad). Shocking that the people doing so much work for Hurling/GAA in general, weren't consulted at all...some of the people in Croke park are very out of touch.
"Better to die on your feet,than live on your knees"...

easytiger95

I don't have much of an opinion on the politics of the thing - in general i think Donal Og has as much a right as any to promote hurling in any part of the world, and that his star wattage can only be a good thing - but...and it is a big but....if you're going to promote hurling, promote hurling.

Read these rules and was baffled by the motivation of coming up with rules for what is essentially a new game, to promote another game. As said above, what happens if it actually works, and new American converts go looking for a game that doesn't exist? Idiotic and potentially damaging to any other promotion efforts.

And as for these adjustments - surely any change made should be to simplify the game for the onlooker, whereas these rules make things far more complicated.

Finally, point taking is an intrinsic and beautiful part of the game - for a man who was on the pitch when the Rock scored his epic from 100 yards out against Limerick in 2001 to forget this or take it for granted is a comment on the fuzzy logic behind this initiative.

Saffrongael

You can be sure if fellas like Donal Og or Lar Corbett are involved its all about the €€€€€€
Let no-one say the best hurlers belong to the past. They are with us now, and better yet to come

Hound

Quote from: easytiger95 on September 13, 2013, 01:17:09 PM
I don't have much of an opinion on the politics of the thing - in general i think Donal Og has as much a right as any to promote hurling in any part of the world, and that his star wattage can only be a good thing - but...and it is a big but....if you're going to promote hurling, promote hurling.

Read these rules and was baffled by the motivation of coming up with rules for what is essentially a new game, to promote another game. As said above, what happens if it actually works, and new American converts go looking for a game that doesn't exist? Idiotic and potentially damaging to any other promotion efforts.

And as for these adjustments - surely any change made should be to simplify the game for the onlooker, whereas these rules make things far more complicated.

Finally, point taking is an intrinsic and beautiful part of the game - for a man who was on the pitch when the Rock scored his epic from 100 yards out against Limerick in 2001 to forget this or take it for granted is a comment on the fuzzy logic behind this initiative.
Agree completely. Know nothing about the politics of the situtation, but the game they are going to promote sounds a lot more like field hockey than hurling. And field hockey is played in dozens of countries across the world, and remains a minority sport in most of them (for good reason presumably)

sheamy

"He came up with this concept, came to us with it and we said let's try it out. What's the worst that can happen?"

Strong decisive leadership there  ???

The lads will fanny about America playing some version of croquet, but won't invest properly in hurling development in Ireland outside of Dublin. Jesus wept.

AQMP

Quote from: sheamy on September 13, 2013, 01:40:52 PM
"He came up with this concept, came to us with it and we said let's try it out. What's the worst that can happen?"

Strong decisive leadership there  ???

The lads will fanny about America playing some version of croquet, but won't invest properly in hurling development in Ireland outside of Dublin. Jesus wept.

Spot on sheamy.  Never mind "showing off" hurling to the "world", what about showing it off to half of Leinster, 4/5 of Connacht and 8/9 of Ulster??

Jinxy

We might as well promote gaelic football abroad by playing soccer so.
If you were any use you'd be playing.