Mayo GAA column - It's time to end the replays on final day

We were treated to an absolute belter of a Mayo county final on Sunday.

Ballina and Westport served up everything you want from championship football. Edge of the seat stuff. Pure drama.

The first 30 minutes were forgettable. Quite cagey, Westport never got the pitch until late and Ballina looked like they would cruise home.

Then the game caught fire and exploded into life.

What we got in the second half was entertainment of the highest quality. Honesty from both sets of players. Pure tension.

Brian McDermott looked certain to have won it for Westport when he lined up what would have been a sensational two-pointer to win the game from the corner back. 

This columnist remembers him hitting a similarly outrageous score in the All-Ireland Intermediate semi-final victory over Kenmare Shamrocks in Cusack Park back in 2017.

He doesn’t do it often but when he does and all that…

The game looked done. Westport, second best for so long, had clawed their way back and were about to deliver a knockout blow, swept along by a frenzy of two-pointers. 

Then they coughed up a lazy foul at the death. Frank Irwin stepped up under serious pressure and buried a free from outside the arc to force the draw.

The champions showed serious balls to fight back like this. They never quit. Westport should have won it but Ballina refused to die.

RIDICULOUS

Now these two teams have to go away and do it all again in six days.

It’s time replays are abolished. They are outdated and ridiculous at this stage.

Yes, replays are rooted in GAA tradition. The idea was noble at the start. Promote fairness. Give teams an even standing after heroic battles. Let them have another go at it.

Those origins made sense when football was different and the demands were different.

Times have changed. The game has changed. The preparation has changed.

I am certain 99 per cent of the Ballina and Westport players would have wanted to finish the game there and then on Sunday. Get it done. Leave everything out on the pitch. Win or lose.

The only exceptions are Padraig O'Hora and Lee Keegan. Both went off injured in the first half. You need a serious belt to keep warriors like those two down and off the pitch.

Getting them back for another crack at it might be fair in this instance. I understand the emotional pull of giving injured players another shot.

But we cannot let one incident dictate a much wider and overarching issue. Injuries are rare, particularly to two characters like the aforementioned duo. 

Emotional arguments do not make for good policy.

CHANGING THE RULES

People will push back and say replays are part of our culture. Something we have always done.

Fine. I hear them.

But let me point this out. The GAA has shown in the last couple of years that we have no problem changing rules that supposedly stood the test of time.

The FRC ripped up the culture script last year, and thus that argument. 

Those changes were made to better the game and the sport and they were hugely successful. This would be too. 

Penalty shootouts were introduced a few years ago and people lost their minds. It’s not an idea outcome, but there are few better mechanisms to do it. 

It also must be pointed out that replays are a revenue generator for the organisation. And a pretty nice extra addition of cash flow, too. 

Cash flow is important. It helps our games grow, and unlike some, I wouldn’t hold that against the organisation for trying to improve that all the time. 

But there are other means. 

PLAYER WELFARE

Some will trot out the player welfare angle. 

‘These lads have been training all year and deserve another go’.. ‘it’s not fair on them to keep playing’ etc etc.

Also nonsense. 

I am a senior club footballer. Club footballers are ridiculously fit in the modern game. The whole strategy of hard training is to push your body that bit further than a game requires. 

That’s preparation. 

An extra 20 or 30 minutes on the day will not break them.

You finish the game and you walk away knowing it is done. One way or another.

Not to mention that external factors in all of this. Families – wives, girlfriends, kids etc. Their plans and lives are every bit as impacted with this as the players. 

All that being said, I am excited to see these two teams go at it again next week. The game on Sunday was a treat. The replay will be a treat. Who wouldn’t want to see that again?

But the fact the game was excellent does not make replays right.

Let teams leave the pitch knowing the result is final. Let supporters go home knowing who won. 

Let the winners celebrate and the losers lick their wounds without this limbo week hanging over them.

The GAA, to their credit, have made moves in the past whereby abolishing replays in all but the finals.

It was a move in the right direction but there needs to be one more.

Replays served their purpose decades ago. 

They do not serve the modern game.