‘Those whom the gods would destroy they first make mad’, is an old saying but a true one, writes An Fear Rua …

And it applies as much in the realm of Gaelic games as in any other walk of life. If you doubt that proposition, all you have to do is look at this week’s decision by Waterford hurling manager, Gerald McCarthy, to allow star half back Stephen Frampton off on a trip to Australia, if ye don’t mind, at a time when he should be at home helping the Decies clinch this year’s National Hurling League title.

Gerald McCarthy was a brilliant hurler in his day – a skilful stickman and a shrewd tactician – who ably led Cork in breaking a long wait for an overdue All Ireland title by beating Kilkenny in 1966. He has done tremendous work in building up the skills and fitness of this Waterford team but, above all, in giving them the kind of confidence that allowed them to beat Cork recently in circumstances where every other Waterford team, save the greats of ’48 and ’59, would have folded.

McCarthy, quite correctly in An Fear Rua’s view, has stressed the need for Waterford to get some kind of silverware on the sideboard this year, in order to build confidence and engender further success. Unlike other managers, who studiedly pretend not to be interested in the League, his charges have shot from the traps like a good brindle bitch in your local greyhound stadium and have been streaking for the line. Now, however, with a vital final game in the offing against an improving Tipp, and qualification for the semi-finals in doubt – let alone taking the title – he has allowed the Ballygunner man, Frampton, to head for the Antipodes! In ainm Dé agus Muire na nDéise, it’s not as if this present Waterford panel is overburdened with star hurlers and they can afford to let Frampton go at this time.

And why is this talented young man travelling to Australia for what Dr A J F O’Reilly’s organ has described as ‘the trip of a lifetime’? To play hurling for ‘The Irish Banks’ Hurling Team’! ‘The wha’?’, says you. Yes, you heard it right the first time – ‘The Irish Banks’ Hurling Team’. Quite honestly, AFR had to check the date on the paper several times to be sure the report wasn’t some class of an ‘April Fool’ joke in very bad taste. Begod, asserts An Fear Rua, tis’ only these recent years the bankers have got all that interested in Gaelic games, and then only when some of the hurling and football lads got to colleges and began to get better paying jobs than just the Civil Service, the Guards or the teaching. Fair dues, the old Munster and Leinster bank had a few handy hurlers in their ranks in the old days. Indeed, former Kilkenny hurling stalwart and now erudite Senator – that decent man Mick Lanigan - started his days as a clerk behind the counter of the former Provincial Bank.

But for most bank clerks, rugby or golf were the games of choice. These were the sports where they had fancy clubhouses and they could meet the solicitor, the doctor, the dentist, the auctioneer, the architect, the Garda ‘Super’ and even the Parish Priest, in some comfort and discuss ‘business’. You know yerself the class of carryon, the likes of: ‘Where would you like me to put your money offshore, Yer Rivirence?’ and so on. Ah no! Not for the bankers the constant togging out against a prickly blackberry hedge in a howling wind and lashing rain with the farm labourers, the brickies, the carpenters and shop assistants of the local GAA club. So, it’s not as if any GAA team owes anything to the bankers, despite their recent manifestation as generous sponsors of the All Ireland Club and the Senior Football championships.

Of course, some of the smarter boyos in the Gowlnacalley-John Redmonds club were putting forward a far more Machiavellian scenario when they met the other evening for a few pints in the ‘shnug’ of Ma Molloy’s celebrated drinking emporium in Main Street. They pointed out that not only is Nicky English manager of the Tipperary hurling team – whom Waterford face in their final League tussle as well as in a much-anticipated Munster championship game at the end of May – but the same Nioclás is a Senior Manager with Allied Irish Banks! Now you don’t have to be Inspector Clouseau to work out that maybe Oul’ Nick Himself might have dropped a word in somebody’s ear to ensure Frampton’s selection on the illustrious ‘Irish Banks’ Hurling Team’ and then made sure the trip was timed to inflict maximum damage to Waterford’s preparations… For his own part, An Fear Rua would vigourously reject any such suggestions. But now if Ger Loughane were a bank manager ….

Focal Buíochais: Some time this weekend, the number of visitors to An Fear Rua’s fireside will pass the one thousand mark. And that’s in only two weeks since the doors were opened on this website. We want to thank you all for joining us and we look forward to having you along as we add even more features to the site over the coming months.

We also want to thank our good friends at the excellent IrelandPlus who hosted us so well as we grew from our development phase from last November.

Focal Scoir: Congratulations are in order to the rugby crowd for the dignified – and indeed stirring – manner in which the anthems of both countries were rendered at the recent international between Ireland and Wales at Lansdowne Road. Though the GAA used often crow about ‘foreign’ games, and we still hear a lot of oul guff about d’Association being a ‘more a national movement than a mere sporting organisation’ we have a lot to learn from the rugby fraternity about respect for the anthem.

An Fear Rua has already commented on this topic in ‘Rowl It There, Paddy!’ Suffice to say for now that at most major GAA matches the norm is that the anthem is completely drowned out from about a third or half way through by a rising crescendo of 'Yahoos', 'Yeehahs', 'Geh Up Ya Bhoy Ya' and sundry other shouts. There almost seems to be competition between the rival groups of fans to see who can get the first shout in. At the rate the anthem is currently being eroded, An Fear Rua estimates that by the year 2005 or 2006, the Artane Boys Band will have just played the 'Sinne Fianna Fáil...' bit at the start, when the rest of the tune will be drowned out by the baying of the assembled fans.