TV rights + Mayo club footballer of the year

I see that TV3 have landed one of the packages of live championship matches for 2008, comprising at least 10 live and exclusive matches over the next three years. This means that TV3 will broadcast two provincial finals in 2008, thus breaking RTE's age-old hegemony in this area.

This has got to be good news. Monopolies are, in general, bad for the ordinary punter while competition, by and large, delivers a superior outcome all round. The record of Irish monopolies is particularly poor, that of Irish public sector ones is, well, shite. RTE's live TV coverage of gaelic games has always been, at best, fairly complacent, pedestrian and lazy. While they've faced limited competition from the BBC in recent years in relation to the Ulster championship, this coverage has been totally focused through the prism of Norn Iron and the lads could have been talking about tiddlywinks for all the relevance that it has had to the wider GAA scene. As such, the Beeb's coverage never made any attempt to tackle Monstrose's championship offering head-on. TV3's will and so this first serious attempt to muscle in on RTE's erstwhile monopoly patch should be the root up the hole that RTE need to up their game significantly.

Elsewhere, Hogan Stand is reporting that Ronan McGarritty has been shortlisted for the award of Mayo club footballer of the year. This is a punter-driven poll, run by the Mayo News and the others on the shortlist are David Brady, Kenny Golden, John Brogan and David Tiernan. Vote early and vote often, as the old Sinn Fein mantra used to go.

Pat's ass

So there'll be no all-night sessions at the Labour Court, no grim-faced, downbeat assessments provided to the media by a bearded Brudder Farrell, no Ingrid Miley reports for RTE News, no placard-bearing players huddled around burning braziers outside Croke Park. What did I tell you? None of the participants in this comedy wanted to go the full distance on it and so today's announcement that the players' grants issue has been sorted (or will be once the GAA and the GPA vote on it) comes as little surprise.

Oh and, by the way, this has nothing whatsoever to do with "pay for play". No sirree - what's on offer is an Annual Team Performance Scheme (ATPS) and an Annual Support Scheme (ASS). With a little rejigging, one could easily end up with a nicely apposite two-part acronym for this particular peace deal, i.e. Pat's ass. I can imagine that one catching on. Picture the scene: a player (who shall remain nameless) pulls up for training in his new boy-racer motor. One of his teammates stops to admire it and asks him how much he gave for it. Our friend tells him and then adds "I got it on the Pat's ass".

Brady's last year, "probably"

David Brady has announced his retirement a few times over the past few years and, in the wake of Ballina's Connacht club title success on Sunday, he's sort of done it again by intimating that the victory was all the sweeter as "it's probably my last one".

That still leaves plenty of room for confusion as to when exactly he plans to pull on his cardie and slippers. Is this year (i.e. 2007) his last? Or will he call it a day once Ballina's club campaign is over (i.e. 17th March 2008 at the latest?) Or is he still going to make himself available for the county next year? Probably, I'd say. DB isn't a first fifteen man anymore but he's still someone that would be good to have in the squad and who could still have a part to play over the course of 2008, preferably not just to come on when we're two or three goals down either.

Incidentally, there's been quite a funny bout of handbags at dawn on the Mayofans.com message board over Brady's performance for Ballina on Sunday, where it has been alleged that he was a "disgrace" with all his "divin and pretendin to be injured". Quite right - we're the nice guys of Gaelic football aren't we? Pure as the driven snow, always playing the game as it should be played and bugger the consequences. Jesus wept: what would the reaction be if a team from Mayo actually engaged in a bit of rough stuff itself?

A looming case of divided loyalties?

Yesterday's club results brought one step closer a potential situation where I'm torn between supporting two different clubs in the All-Ireland final. One of them - Ballina (reason for supporting: representatives of county of birth) - has already taken the provincial crown in Connacht and now faces the Munster champions, most likely Nemo Rangers, in the All-Ireland semi-final in February.

The other - St Vincent's (reason for supporting: local club where I'm domiciled here in the capital, for whom my little Dubettes are already expressing vociferous support) - are in the Leinster final, where they'll face either Moorefield or Tyrellspass and will, I reckon, fancy their chances of landing a first Leinster title in aeons.

If the Vins do the business in Leinster, they'll face defending All-Ireland champions Crossmaglen Rangers in the All-Ireland semi-final. XMG (as, I was once told, was the term used by the Occupying Hordes up north for the army base they had there) would be favourites to make it back to the final but the Marino lads could well topple them. And the Stephenites will also fancy their chances of a return to Croke Park on Paddy's Day and a tilt at a second national title in four years.

There's still a few major hurdles to be surmounted before I'm faced with this particular dilemma but it's now beginning to look like a realistic scenario and so I feel it's only right to lay before the world the potential personal agonising I might have to face over which cause to support on March 17th next.

Silverware for Ballina and Cornacon

Both Ballina and Cornacon lifted cups today, the former the Connacht senior club title - deposing the holders St Brigid's of Roscommon - while the latter claimed the ladies All-Ireland senior club title, hammering Cork's Inch Rovers.

Ladies first, as they say - Cornacon had it all their own way in their All-Ireland final against Inch Rovers at Banagher, winning by 2-14 to 1-6. RTE's match report is here. The peerless Cora Staunton - the Ronaldinho of ladies Gaelic football - racked up 1-11 of that winning total, as Cornacon made up for last year's All-Ireland final defeat. The club is also the backbone of the Mayo ladies team so today's All-Ireland win would, no doubt, have dulled the pain from September's All-Ireland final loss to Cork.

Ballina's Connacht final clash with St Brigid's was live on TG4 and I caught most of it, though not the two early first half goal by Stepenites, which helped them into a four-point lead at the break. The second half looked fairly robust at times, with plenty of mistimed tackles, shoulders landing square in the chest and the odd few belts being thrown. From my vantage point on the couch, it appeared to be Brigid's doing most of the scelping. However, it was Ballina who went a man down early in the second half, at a stage when Brigid's were only a point behind but this seemed to provoke Ballina back to life and they raced five points clear before being reeled back in to just two at the finish. Brigid's hit the woodwork in injury time - when a goal would surely have landed them the title - but Ballina managed to hold on for, literally, a hard-fought win. A full report on the game, also from RTE, is available here.

Like the Champions League, the club championships now go into a hibernation phase, with the action resuming in February. I'm not sure who Ballina will meet in the semis but Crossmaglen are already through from Ulster, Nemo Rangers look like they'll be joining the party from Munster and my local club here in the metropolis, St Vincent's (who hammered Portlaoise 3-13 to 1-8 today in the Leinster semi-final: go on ya good things!), are starting to look the part in Leinster. That's four heavyweight clubs so the All-Ireland series early next year could be worth watching out for.

Rarer than Popes

It would be remiss not to mention this week's appointment of Monaghan's Paraic Duffy as the new Director General of the GAA. Although not as rare as Halley's Comet, such appointments don't happen just any old day - the new man will, when he takes oifig next February, be only the fourth DG the organisation has had since 1929. Mother of God: we've had more popes since then.

Paraic Duffy is obviously a good choice as DG and his recent experience, in particular his current post as Player Welfare Manager, means he is ideally placed to offer progressive leadership to the organisation on issues such as the players' grants controversy. In his post-appointment press conference yesterday, Duffy stated clearly that it was time "to move on to a totally different relationship with our players". He's not wrong there and, by the sounds of it, he could be the man to ensure that this happens.

Injury stories start to reappear

Remember our injury crisis from the early part of this year? You might recall that goalie Kenneth O'Malley was one casualty, when he dislocated his thumb in the league match against the Dubs in early April. Well, he's crocked again - so says this report in Hogan Stand - this time after coming off second-best in a collision with a trainee Guard while playing for UL against the Garda College. You'd think the Guards would wait till after their passing-out parade before dishing out the rough stuff but this lad must have been keen to get out of the Templemore classroom and put some theory into practice. It looks like he was taking notice in his beat-up-the-suspects class as O'Malley had to leave the match by ambulance after the altercation, though the report reassures us that he's making a "steady recovery".

Elsewhere, Hogan Stand is also reporting that Conor Mortimor is denying rumours about him transferring to Dublin club Oliver Plunketts. I should bloody well think so - if Mort switches to anyone up here it should be to our own St Vincent's, where Pat Kelly and Brian Maloney would no doubt make him welcome. Not too sure about Mossie, though . . .