Running to stand still
By Sean O'Donaile
I'm just back from a 17 mile canvass around Coolock and I feel a
bit like a Westmeath footballer, except they've probably run
seventeen hundred miles and still aren't past the first round
proper.
The Gerry A roadshow was in town last night and we had the
makings of two football teams tonight - ``Vote for Larry O'Toole,
your only man, a horse of a man, the man to get things done,
stand by your man''... ``them politicians abuv in Leinster House
sitting on their arses swilling beer and robbing the country
blind with their brutal hairstyles and neon ties, the only onisht
wan among them is Charlie Haughey''.
I reckon we've got further than Westmeath for our efforts -
they've now played four championship matches and haven't reaped
many benefits. For the last number of years they've been bobbing
up and down the nether regions of the league and got as far as
the Leinster semi-finals once, but the ridiculous knockout system
means that usually teams such as Westmeath spend all year
bursting their gut for one football match and then the GAA
scratch their heads as to why football is not prospering in many
counties.
Their manager is none other than my boyhood hero, Barney Rock -
he was my hero until he stood as a candidate for the Progressive
Democrats in Finglas, which would be similar to an Antrim hurler
running for the Conservatives in Lower Falls. For all their
troubles Westmeath will have played at least four matches this
summer, which is more than 90% of the sides will do.
Tyrone managed to stumble past Down by 3-8 to 1-11 but still look
stuck in second gear apart from the last ten minutes of the drawn
game when the chips were down. This looks like the end of the
line for Greg Blayney and co. and Tyrone might yet do a Mid
Ulster on it and lift some silverware for their new MP.
Mayo buried their Tuam hoodoo for the first time since their last
All Ireland in 1951. This time round they didn't have to kiss the
bishop's ring and looked like a team that means business - for
the second season running Connacht football has provided
exhilarating games and we almost forgot about the election for an
hour. Mayo is one of those places where you still only get Fianna
Fáil and Fine Gael lardarses running the show so having a half
decent team helps to lift the gloom somewhat.
In hurling Waterford got their annual outing against a drug-free
Limerick, who must surely be the unluckiest county in Ireland
with the three PD TD's in the country - but that still hasn't
cured all ``them good for nathin' dolers and mothers living in sin
and good lifers sitting on their arses''.
Roll on the summer!
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