Pauric McShea: Paddy McGrath - a true players’ player

Greatness is a great word in sport - a great concept. In a sense sport is all about greatness, the search for greatness, the falling short from greatness, the rare achievement of greatness.

Greatness is elusive by definition but unmistakable when viewed. In sport, it is a word that is used far too liberally and often without much meaning. And sometimes we can all be mean and begrudging when it comes to our use of the word .

Most of us go through a realisation, even a reluctant acceptance, of the fact that life is difficult and that our wildest dreams - especially in sport - will always be wild.. Those to whom the word great can be attributed never ever let a setback set them back.

Their own talent, their own mental powers, were always adequate for the task in front of them. Their dream never needed to be compromised, perfection was never retreated from, because perfection was in their grasp all along.

Paddy McGrath’s decision to announce his retirement from county football this week sees Donegal say goodbye to a footballer who can easily be described as a great defender .You could tell when Paddy came into the Donegal squad that he was going to make the number 2 jersey his own and remain there for a very long time and that is exactly what he did.

Consistency was Paddy McGrath’s middle name. I never ever remember him playing poorly. Most cornerbacks endured a day when things didn't go well but not Paddy. He had an innate grasp of what defending is all about, of reading the play, getting his positioning right and correctly predicting what his opponent would do next.

For a cornerback he was a very fair player, but he was fiercely determined and go all the time. He played as if he begrudged an opposing forward get the ball because he played from the front all the time - a wonderful attribute for a defender who simply exuded confidence.

The sight of Paddy driving forward before delivering a lengthy clearance to one of his forwards was a real rallying call for his colleagues and indeed the Donegal supporters. It never did much for the opposition’s confidence.

I always considered Paddy to be the perfect team player because his fullback or fellow defenders never had to worry about the threat from the opposing left corner-forward as Paddy took care of that problem.

Never one for the spotlight he went about his business in a very efficient manner and he reminded me a lot of another great Donegal cornerback Andy Curran who was a real players’ player and a top class defender too. I know that all Donegal followers will join me in wishing Paddy and his young family every good wish for the future. No player deserves it more.

Another Special Congress in February?

I am not too sure of the rush or reason for another Congress in February to deal with or discuss the imbalance in the football championship.

It was also noticeable that the new committee set up to deal with this “problem” has eight or nine members on board and the one common denominator among the new squad is, as far as I know, not one of them has ever pulled on a county jersey.

I am not for one minute suggesting that the new group should be top-heavy with former players but one or two past players would definitely have had the ability to make a positive input to the deliberations.

I believe that the time has come to have a serious look at Gaelic Football in its present guise and a restructuring of the rules is a more pressing reason for a Congress rather than the perceived anxiety to do away with the provincial championships .

After a weekend watching club championship football apart from the sheer genius of seeing Paul Mannion kick some superb scores from distance for Kilmacud Crokes there was little to get excited about.

Every team is now passing the ball to players 20 to 30 yards behind them with dreadful monotony and the time has come to introduce a rule prohibiting any player pass the ball back to a teammate in his own half of the pitch.

Watching Scotstown’s Rory Beggan spend much of the game in the opposition's half of the pitch with little effect got me thinking about the time that the rules allowed forwards to tackle goalkeepers in their own square - it may be radicle to consider reintroducing that rule again but no doubt it would make the game much more attractive than what is currently on offer.

Finally, how did Dublin’s manager Dessie Farrell manage to find a reason to leave Mannion on the bench for Dublin’s quest to regain Sam this year? He had to be the only one in Dublin who felt that he had six better forwards at his disposal.