Emmet Moloney writes for the 'The Irish Farmers Journal' and is a former sports columnist with 'The Kerryman'.

They’re competitive games but they’re insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Emmet Moloney calls for calm as the GAA season warms up...

We live in the age of over-reaction. With gratification so instant these days, the panic button is never far away. So let it be with the first round of national league matches.

Take Wexford. Watching RTÉ’s Sunday sports show you’d be forgiven for thinking that Wexford hurling officially died in Pearse Stadium last Sunday afternoon when Galway beat the Yellowbellies by 21 points. Such was the mood in the studio afterwards I was waiting for funeral music, a decade of the rosary and perhaps Liam Griffin, Tony Doran and Martin Storey delivering the graveside orations. Instead we got Michael Lyster, Tomás Mulcahy and Michael Duignan performing the last rites. They should know better.

Plenty of teams get hammered in the league. Yes, even Tipp, Kilkenny and Cork. It never really matters. It can be a symptom, it can be a sign, but championship is where the real measurements can be taken.

Wexford have struggled mightily in recent years but there are cycles in the game and they are going through one right now. Their club champions Oulart came close to toppling the Kilkenny champions just a fortnight ago and their senior side always delivers at least one serious performance every year. Sometimes more than one. They did afterall win a Leinster championship as recently as 2004, beating Brian Cody’s Kilkenny along the way.

So, calm down lads. Mr Bonnar has his hands full trying to get the best out of them, but a cold Sunday in February is only where you find out who has the stomach for it. You’ll find out about hurling ability as the year goes on. Wexford will bounce back and soon enough. While they might be relegation candidates, their demise is greatly exaggerated.

Sometimes we borrow too much from other sports. We take one set of beliefs and apply them to another code far too easily. The English premier league is a case in point. In that field the manager is God when a team does well and the divil when it doesn’t. Sacking the manager cures everything. For about a week. We’re falling into that trap.

The best news, quiet as it was, from the weekend was Limerick’s resurgence. In the so-called forgotten division two of the national hurling league they recorded their first competitive victory for over a year. Clare were the victims of the rebirth because someone had to be. This Limerick team had some proud stalwarts back in harness on Sunday and they played like it. Human beings have a number of qualities that make them unique, none more so than pride, and for players like Niall Moran, Stephen Lucey and Wayne McNamara, it was very much on show in Cusack Park.

These lads were prepared to give up a year of championship hurling with their county on a matter of principle. There was always going to be a kickback from them and the Banner felt it. There will be a few more counties who feel their lash and in Donal O’Grady they have a manager who’s been down this road before. We won’t read too much into the victory, only the secure knowledge that Limerick are back. And they’re most welcome.

This weekend coming we finally see the fruits of some clever marketing from the GAA. Dublin hurlers and footballers play the first in a series of Saturday night double-headers in Croke Park. There will be half-time entertainment (even Jedward are down to make an appearance), noise, atmosphere and reduced ticket prices. Not before time.

Having been in Croke Park the night the lights were launched with a national league football match between Tyrone and Dublin, the possibilities then were obvious and endless. There were 70,000 in Croker that night. This was the future. It may have taken a few years for the GAA to realise this, it always does, but now it is happening and thank God for that.

There are a lot of other things happening around us and the key is to be able to respond to the ones that need responding too. Attendances have been poor at first round matches and this has to be tackled aggressively. Prices have to come down and kids must be encouraged to go to matches.

In plenty of grounds around the country – Parnell Park, Wexford Park and Nowlan Park spring to mind – children are invited onto the pitches at half-time to puck around themselves. Very often you see an entire field covered with kids of all ages hitting a ball up and down the same patch of grass where their heroes had just spilled blood or broken a stick. At a Clare and Wexford league match in Wexford a couple of years ago the locals were thrilled when Paul Codd buried a 21-yard free on the stroke of half-time. During the half-time interval the crowd watched spellbound as about 50 young fellas and girls tried to reproduce Codd’s blast. For a finish there were about 30 kids in the goalmouth, with another 30 lining up to take the 21. The roar when finally one of them found the net was as loud as anything the match itself produced.

That’s what I’m talking about and we need more of it. It is a positive development and should be the norm.

You’ll have your health and safety people on the phone but calm down lads; they’re kids, there must be a way to do it. This is next generation and if we’re going to hold onto them then we have to make the effort wherever we can.

It’s early days, we have the spring in front of us to prepare for the real business of championship hurling. Do Tipp supporters really think their loss to Kilkenny last Saturday night takes the good away from last September? Of course not.

There was never an All-Ireland or a provincial title won in the wind and rain of February. Now is a time for attitude, on and off the field. Now is a time for positivity on and off the field. Let’s all try and keep that in mind.



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