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

The main sport on the agenda for this weekend is the bloodthirsty sport of politics. Emmet Moloney writes...

Late tackles, low blows, some prominent red cards and – above all – shocks are on the cards. Saturday is a day for television, radio, internet, count centre or Croke Park that night for a breather and Dublin and Kerry in the football. The rugby fraternity got lucky with the scheduling of Ireland and Scotland for Sunday afternoon. By then we’ll all need a break from the results and a pleasant two hours watching Ireland beat the Scots in a thriller will do the trick. Then it will be back to the last seats being decided and more drama.

Politics is a sport every four or five years when we get to the counts. That hall will be filled with the same lads and lassies who fill a GAA club’s AGM, the same people who populate Thomond Park, Semple Stadium and the races. This country’s size means the cross-pollination is everywhere.

GAA candidates are to be found everywhere. A hurling or football match is up there with a funeral when it comes to attendance. No county takes the field at a home match without the local TD or aspiring TD in the VIP section or Ard Comhairle.

Your county winning something is an opportunity to be immortalised in picture. Getting as close as you can to the photograph of that cup being lifted could be worth its weight in votes. Go through your county successes; that old and tattered poster that still hangs in the pub. Check for the face of the brazen TD or councillor smiling as if he scored the winning point. They’re there.

The club men and women have all been out canvassing for the past three weeks. If the chairman of a club is Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael he probably gets the call to work the neighbourhood with the candidate. Better still as a sidekick would be the decorated county hurler or footballer, whose family are steeped in one of the parties; he’s always asked to do the rounds with the candidate, who will pretend that the two of them are the closest friends in the world.

I have heard of one or two examples in recent weeks of Fianna Fáil calling on their GAA assets, more than likely in the hope that the appearance of the All-Ireland medal winner on the doorstep might deflect some of the anticipated flak. That’s the theory anyway. The GAA is well used to being used as a political plaything. From the ban, to Bloody Sunday, to opening up Croke Park, politics has entered the GAA arena. This shouldn’t surprise us as the GAA was founded as a sporting association with an underlying political goal.

With the 32-county issue pushed well into the background, most of the GAA’s latest political lobbying has been in the area of funding. Like the rest of the sporting bodies, we’ve looked for our share when times were good, from the Lotto, Government grants and indeed personnel placement. That’s a nice way of saying we like to have our people looked after.

A successful career in GAA politics can also lead to a start in real politics. From Sean Kelly’s seamless move from president of the association to Strasbourg, to Michael Lowry and John O’Mahony’s move from the sideline and boardroom to the Dáil, this is a well-trodden path.

Did Brian Cody, Anthony Daly, Seamus Moynihan, Liam Sheedy or Davy Fitz get the call in recent months? Were one of them asked to consider letting their name go forward at a convention?

Of course one of them did. Probably more. Louth manager Peter Fitzpatrick got the call and he is running. We’ll see how much they still care about last year’s Leinster final when Louth reports its first count on Saturday afternoon.

Is the GAA baggage a help or a hindrance? The likes of Graham Geraghty, Mick O’Connell and Seamus Durack will say it didn’t really help their cause as their votes didn’t materialise for victory. But they are in the minority. From Dan and Dick Spring to Sean Flanagan and John Wilson, the Dáil was littered with sporting greats. Jimmy Deenihan and Jack Lynch were probably the most decorated of the elected TDs, Jimmy is still going.

Of course the guys who didn’t run are the ones we’ll speculate on. Would Ger Loughnane top the poll in Clare if he ran? Would Dónal Óg get elected in Cork? Liam Griffin in Wexford? Tommy Walsh in Kilkenny? Paraic Joyce in Galway?

I’m of the opinion that they all would. We could probably come up with one certainty in every county. And every constituency. Maybe the day will come when the GAA decides this is the what the country needs, although we’ve probably reached that nadir as things stand. Maybe next time.

For now we can just enjoy the sheer spectacle of the results flowing in. Then on Saturday night we’ll watch a bit of Kerry and Dublin from Croke Park. No Jedward this time, but always action guaranteed when these two meet and atmosphere aplenty thanks to the foresight of the Dublin county board. The Dubs are on a league high with two wins out of two and never refuse the Kingdom’s scalp. Kerry, on the other hand, will relish a chance to blood a few newcomers in front of a big crowd in Croker. Skin and hair could fly.

That break over, we’ll return to the count where more skin and hair could be in the air. Former ministers for sport, including Kerry’s John O’Donoghue and Dun Laoghaire’s Mary Hanafin, could be retiring from the fray around then and have more time for football.

By Sunday we’ll be tired but emotional. The remnants of the election will still be smouldering and a few infamous “long counts” will be underway. Recounts will be called when someone loses by a handful of votes. A handful of votes? That could be the difference between lads who trained on Friday night and didn’t finish till after nine, wrecked and didn’t bother to vote. That’s how close it could be.

We’ll take two hours off to watch Ireland win the rugby. Then it will be back to the bloodsport. By this time next week the country will have spoken and we’ll have it all sorted out. For a while anyway.



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