A level playing field for all

The Extra Mile - Examiner's Eye on sport, By Rodney Farry, Deputy Editor

Congratulations to the Raharney camogie team and the St Loman’s U15 girls team on their recent Féile successes.

The future looks very bright for Westmeath camogie and ladies football if the talent and hunger displayed by these groups of young women are anything to go by.

Huge strides have been made in recent years at club level when it comes to camogie and ladies football. Go to any club on a Saturday morning and you are likely to encounter dozens of young girls developing their skills and having fun with their friends.

However, at inter-county level there is still a huge amount of work to be done when it comes to securing the same supports and conditions for female players that their male counterparts take for granted.

Female intercounty players make the same sacrifices, albeit willingly, and put in as much effort as male players and deserve to treated accordingly. The GAA, LGFA and Camogie Association owe it to the current generation of players and those following them in the years to come, to work with each other and the GPA to ensure that elite female players are treated the same as their male inter-county counterparts.

No Referee, No Game

While Westmeath GAA, Westmeath LGFA and the Westmeath Camogie Association should be praised for their new joint initiative, ‘No Referee, No Game’, it’s a pity that players, coaches and supporters have to be encouraged to respect the men and women in black.

Talk to almost any referee and they will sadly have numerous stories about when they were abused, physically or verbally, during or after a game. In fact, many will say that the frequency and intensity of the abuse has become worse in recent years

This isn’t a problem that is unique to Westmeath, or indeed unique to Gaelic Games, but it is a sad state of affairs and one that is reportedly deterring many young people from becoming match officials.

There is so much to admire about the GAA and the positive impact that it has had on Irish society for well over a century; however, the negative manner in which a small, but very vocal and active minority of Gaels interact with referees when they believe their team has been wronged is a blight of our national games and something that needs to be stamped out.

Intriguing start to SHC

While the reigning champions Castletown Geoghegan eventually managed to see off the challenge of Fr Dalton’s on Sunday evening in TEG Cusack Park, if the opening round of results is anything to go by, this year’s senior hurling championship could be the most open in years.

Castlepollard followed up their recent victory in the All County Division 1 League final with a deserved victory over Raharney in the second of the two matches in Cusack Park on Saturday evening.

The first match on Saturday evening saw Lough Lene Gaels put Clonkill to the sword. Indeed, according to the match report by Paul Hughes (see p65) if Joey Williams’ men had been less profligate, the winning margin could have been greater.

It’s early days yet, but these results give credence to the view held by many hurling fans that this could be the year that we have a new name on the Westmeath Examiner Cup for the first time in more than two decades.

Dubs and Kerry impress in Croker

The two most successful teams in the history of Gaelic football, Dublin and Kerry, both impressed in their senior football championship quarter-final victories over the weekend in Croke Park.

David Clifford showed once again what a special talent he is against Tyrone, while his teammates are also finding form at the right time of the season.

It’s a similar tale in the Dublin camp. Dessie Farrell’s men were comfortable winners against a disappointing Mayo on Sunday afternoon.

The Dubs’ second half performance was their best of the season and showed that while they might not be the force that they were a few years ago, they are undoubtedly serious contenders again this year with players finding form at the right time. They also have a formidable bench.

With Kerry drawn to play Derry in the semi-finals and Dublin set to play Monaghan, it seems highly likely that these great rivals will once again go head to head for the biggest prize in Gaelic football.