Aaron Kernan on Football

As I made my way to Dublin on Saturday morning my journey was filled with excitement and high expectation because this was the day when the football season would finally spring to life.

It is after all the business end of the season, with nothing but knock-out football left, so a day brimming with high quality football and drama was on the cards. By 8pm on a perfect August evening the country would know the identity of the final two All Ireland semi-finalists for 2015. The stakes were high and anticipation was in the air.

However, after watching both Tyrone and Mayo deservedly clinch the remaining spots in the last four, my journey home was not as lively or enthusiastic as the trip up had been.

I knew clouds would hang over the media coverage of both games and that the negative aspects of the day would command the headlines across all forums. I knew too that the Monaghan and Tyrone game would bear the brunt of it.

It was bound to for I don't think there is another sport in the world that is as self critical as the GAA, particularly Gaelic football. From committee members to referees, managers to players, everyone is open for extreme criticism at the first sign of things going wrong.

Benny Tierney always tell the story about an Armagh supporter giving out about Stevie McDonnell towards the end of Stevie's career. The supporter reckoned Stevie was too slow, past it, no longer worth his place.

The next game Stevie shot the lights out, kicked 1-8 and Benny searched the ground until he met the supporter in question. "What do you think of McDonnell now? Still think he's finished? He's just kicked 1-8 and stole the show," says Benny. To which the supporter replied. "I know, but isn't he the greedy b*****d". With some people you just can't win.

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Gaelic football can be particularly hard on itself, particularly in terms of the way we discuss the issue of 'cynicism' within the sport, but team sports across the world show us countless examples of the levels people are willing to go to in order to achieve success. Cynicism is not solely a Gaelic Football issue.

Last year's NFL season in America was shrouded in controversy regarding the New England Patriots and their star quarterback Tom Brady's ball tampering, now known as "DeflateGate". The Patriots are alleged to have underinflated all 11 footballs they used during their win over the Colts in order to gain an advantage.

The AFL in Australia was hit by the bombshell of the Essendon club supplements programme in 2013 where widespread use of prohibited substances was identified.

The game of rugby, often held up as one of the ultimate games for 'gentlemen', has also had its difficulties. In the 2009 Heineken Cup quarter-final, the then Harlequins manager Dean Richards told one of his players Tom Williams to bite into a fake blood capsule to simulate a blood injury in order to get his regular fly-half Nick Evans back on the field in time to take a drop at goal with the last play. TV cameras caught them out and the scam was later revealed.

Even hurling has its cynical moments. Think of Kilkenny's Richie Power racing through on goal with three minutes to go in last year's All-Ireland semi-final against Limerick when Donal O'Grady dived to ankle tap him with his hurley and stopped an almost certain goal.

Cynicism is an inevitable by-product of top level sport, unfortunately. But for me, the problems begin when most of us refuse to accept our mistakes and as needlessly self-critical as our sport is, I don't think we help ourselves in the way we deal with some legitimate criticism often directed our way.

Our instant reaction is usually to highlight a previous incident that may have been dealt with more leniently and try to deflect attention away from whatever our own issue is. It is never our fault. There is little or no ownership or error within our games.

This is a very Irish way of dealing with things, but there are some examples we can take inspiration from that show it is possible to ship criticism in the right way.

The case of former World Rugby Player of the Year Bryan Habana is a shining example to us all of someone being big enough to admit his mistake. During the 2014 Heineken Cup final while playing for his club Toulon, Habana tried a chip kick up the touch line. When he knew he wasn't going to regain the ball, Habana made contact with a Saracens player and went down easily, hoping for a penalty or a yellow card for his opponent which thankfully the referee didn't buy. The incident was immediately highlighted as a blight on Habana's CV during the post match analysis.

The following day, while Habana and his teammates were receiving heroes' welcomes in Toulon, he released the following statement.

"So before anything. Apologies in every way and to the whole rugby community for what happened in the Heineken Cup Final yesterday. It was in no way intended with any malice or to bring the game into disrepute. Sportsmanship and integrity are key factors to what makes rugby so special and I let myself, the fans, our opponents and the game down. Hopefully it didn't take away from what was a fantastic spectacle and even more so a special victory for Toulon".

This summer, there have been a few cynical incidents in Gaelic football matches that people won't be proud of, and one very recent incident in particular comes to mind. My hope is that those involved in such incidents would follow the Bryan Habana template, admit the mistake made, apologise and put the issue to bed. Lesson learned, it won't happen again.

Unfortunately, the tendency is in the GAA that when managers and players of teams involved in such incidents address the media, they defend themselves and point to others first, rather than addressing their own culpability.

Taking ownership of our games is one aspect I feel we can easily address in order to set the right example for future generations and perhaps limit our capacity for rampant self-criticism. We are all passionate about our games, we love representing our clubs and counties but every so often we need to step back and look at the bigger picture.

Our sport is continually evolving with different trends and tactics but who is going to be the first to buck the trend by coming out and admitting a mistake when one is made, particularly when it is something cynical?

I have no doubt that if more players followed the John Mullane 'you do the crime, you do the time' outlook it would be broadly praised and welcomed, regardless of how big the indiscretion is.

I was once involved in a team that was under-performing, we had a few internal issues and were on the end of a telling off from our management team. They felt that we had lost sight of what we were about and that we were more concerned about our own personal agendas than the well-being of the group.

We were told that we would get nowhere as a team or as individuals without integrity, that it was a characteristic our squad had been built on. They urged us to go home and look up its meaning before we met up again:

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INTEGRITY (noun)

1. The quality of being honest and having strong moral principles.

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As GAA people, we've all reached the stage where it is our responsibility to act with integrity for the good of our game.

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This is the latest of Aaron's exclusive football columns, which feature on GAA.ie throughout the summer. The opinions expressed in this column are personal and are not necessarily those of the Association.

Click here to read more from Aaron and from our hurling analyst Brian Hogan