Jason Flynn was taken off after 31-minutes in Galway’s Leinster final triumph over Wexford. The Tommy Larkins club man wasn’t the first, nor will he be the last GAA player to be taken off before half-time, but you can be guaranteed he was absolutely sickened.
Galway’s celebrations upon their second winning of the Bob O’Keefe Cup were said to be muted yesterday, with the bigger picture of Liam MacCarthy in mind.
For the Tribesmen’s half forward, they were particularly muted.
Though the GAA is a team game, and the main priority of a player going out on a field on any given day is for their team to win, your individual performance will always be weighing on your mind.
That’s just the way it is. Players train hard, they put in countless hours to have themselves in the best shape possible on game-day. Your main focus is on what you can do best as an individual to help the team.
When you have a bad game, you didn’t fulfil your own personal standards, you’re always going to be disappointed. If the team wins, the disappointment will be clouded, but it will always be nagging at you.
Maybe you’re worried about your position on the team for the next game. You might feel you let yourself down.
When things aren’t working out for you early on in the game, you try to tell yourself to relax. It’s a 70-minute game.
You may be struggling to get to the pace of the game, the ball mightn’t be coming anywhere near you. You’re looking forward to the referee blowing that half-time whistle so you can go into the dressing room and psyche yourself up for a second half improvement.
That was how Jason Flynn probably felt after 30-minutes of the game yesterday.
A minute later, he was whipped off and sitting on the bench in the Hogan Stand.
There’s nothing worse, but Flynn has right to feel hard-done-by according to The GAA Hour Hurling Show host, Colm Parkinson.
“I thought they were a little bit harsh on Jason Flynn. Jason Flynn is another one of these mercurial types of players and he strikes me as the ultimate confidence player as in when he’s on form he’ll do absolutely anything. I didn’t think he deserved to go when he did, before half-time. Number one, I’m completely against taking lads off four minutes before half time, it’s an ego-trip by the manager as far as I’m concerned. What harm could a player do in four minutes?
Paddy Stapleton agreed with Parkinson. Stapleton argued that the dreaded plight of being called ashore before the interval is one of the worst things for a players confidence. The Tipperary man knows just how important Flynn is to this Galway team, and feels manager Micheál Donoghue was wrong to take him off.
“In the long run of the season, Jason Flynn is the lad they need. If they want to win the All-Ireland, they need this player on the team or coming on. It’s probably not going to do a lot for him in the next four or five weeks before that All-Ireland semi-final. If they get past the 25 or 26-minute mark, Jesus, like, you have to keep them on until half-time. Otherwise, it will dent a players’ confidence who will think ‘Am I good enough for this at all?”
The lads went on to discuss the most difficult plights a player can face on a GAA field, Flynn’s is right up there.
“The only thing worse than being taken off just before half-time is being brought on and brought off. You know, being dropped for a match is not comparable, that’s a bit of a sickener. I was just talking to Conor (Cooney) about it because Conor was brought on and brought off in an All-Ireland final against Kilkenny in 2012. He got nine bloody minutes. That’s the ultimate humiliation. It happened to me in an All-Ireland quarter final, on and off. It’s never happened to me being taken off before half-time, thank God,” said Parkinson.
It’s not a good feeling.
You can listen to the lads’ debate here from 37’00” from The GAA Hour Hurling Show.
