And there’s no better man to say it as it is.
Ruby Walsh is a proud Kildare man. One of the Lilywhites’ finest sons, the champion jockey was born and raised in the parish of Kill near the county’s border with Dublin.
Horse racing has taken Walsh all over the world from Pretsbury Park to Auteil all the way to Australia but he’s never forgotten his roots.
Like all Kildare people, indeed, like all GAA people, Walsh felt wronged by the GAA when his county’s Round Three Qualifier clash with Mayo was taken out of St. Conleth’s Park, Newbridge.
Cian O’Neill’s side were first out of the hat on Monday morning which entitles them, according to the GAA’s own rules, to home advantage. The GAA proceeded to overrule themselves via a flurry of reasons and explanations about crowd troubles and about health and safety reasons.
Hon the Lilywhites!https://t.co/r1JUGmJ8CZ
— GAA JOE (@GAA__JOE) June 27, 2018
The general consensus, however, was that the underlying reason for the proposed move to Croke Park was the ability to sell more tickets and for them to earn more revenue from the game.
As it turned out, the organisation suffered one hell of a beating themselves as they were forced to backtrack on this move after an upheaval of almighty proportions amongst supporters, county boards and management.
The cold hard facts of the situation don’t shine lightly on the GAA and Ruby Walsh, a man who never deals in gibberish, set it straight via Paddy Power News.
“As Kildare came out first in the draw, they are entitled to take on Mayo in Newbridge on Saturday evening at 7 o’clock,” Ruby Stated matter of factly.
A real Lilywhite, Ruby was thinking about what this would be worth to his own county and he spoke as any Kildare man would.
Using a true Irish colloquialism, Walsh claimed it would be worth a ‘beano’ to the local economy.
“It’s an hour and three quarters after the Irish Derby is run at The Curragh and It would mean an absolute beano for the local economy in Kildare.
“The GAA are only thinking about themselves by moving it all to Croke Park. Dublin benefit enough from the GAA and it gets a great spin-off from the games in Croke Park – provincial towns are entitled to their go too.”
He’s proud of how his county board, his team and Cian O’Neill stood their ground and said come what may.
“Fair play to Kildare for sticking to their guns and sticking up for their county. It’s a great opportunity for people to go to both the Irish Derby and the match. I think they are dead right and I’d be surprised if they don’t have the backing of everyone in Kildare.”
That sort of codswallop wouldn’t go down in horse racing.
“In racing, they don’t decide to move a meeting to another course just because a race is looking to be better than they expected at the entries stage. Rules are rules.”
