Nobody should be that surprised that Northern Ireland's poor showing in athletics at the recent Commonwealth Games has now degenerated into an unseemly bunfight among the administrators of the sport here. But the interesting thing is that they've chosen to centre the debate around that most prickly of Northern sporting issues - nationality.
The chef de mission of the Northern Ireland team, Dick McColgan, said last week that by declaring for the Republic Larne runner James McIlroy had "automatically excluded" himself from the Northern Ireland team that went to Kuala Lumpur. But McColgan's reading of the situation ignored the fact that the team was representing the NI Commonwealth Games Council and not the Northern Ireland Athletics Federation, which has a rule barring dual representation. McIlroy and other Northern athletes who have represented the Republic in the past could have gone to the Games had their names been put forward. McColgan seemingly misread the situation.
In the circumstances this was understandable. Noses have been put out of joint here by the well-publicised decision of Northern Ireland's best long-distance runner, Dermot Donnelly, to declare for the Republic in the hope that international representation will come his way more readily. With talent in short enough supply, Northern Irish athletics can ill afford to haemorrhage talent of the likes of McIlroy and Donnelly.
Donnelly, in particular, has been a very high profile victim of the system here whereby Northern Ireland athletes are repeatedly overlooked when it comes to selection for British teams.
A cross-country runner of considerable repute, Donnelly missed out on the World Cross Country Championships in March, despite his proven pedigree at the event. His non-selection for the 5,000 metres at the European Championships earlier this year, despite having run the qualifying time at a meeting in Holland, added further insult to injury. Even worse, those same selectors then went on to pick a little-known English runner called Rod Finch for the trip to Budapest. Finch had finished behind Donnelly at that meeting in Holland.
Plans for the Commonwealth Games were already at an advanced stage and Donnelly decided to persist with his preparations. These reaped rich dividends in the stifling humidity of Malaysia as Donnelly registered his best international performance to finish fifth in the final of the 10,000 metres, ahead of five other African runners. The irony of the fact that Donnelly was the best-placed British runner won't have been lost either on him or on the selectors.
Nothing that had happened or was happening to him gave Donnelly any reason to believe that there would be a thawing in the selectors' icy approach. Next March the World Cross Country Championships will be held on his home patch here in Belfast and over course on which Donnelly trains regularly. Donnelly couldn't afford to take the risk that he wouldn't even get a chance to run in the championships if he was ignored yet again. And that was the final impetus for last week's defection to the Republic and to the BLE.
He readily concedes that this is a decision that has been driven by pragmatism and that he couldn't take the chance of "being discriminated against" one more time by the great and the good who run British athletics. The net result has been to bring, blinking into the spotlight, a byproduct of sporting life here that most officials and administrators would prefer to ignore - the issue of dual nationality for Northern Ireland-born competitors. Anyone who doubts just how laden with political symbolism this is should have been at Windsor Park on that scabrous night back in 1993 to see and hear the poisonous reception afforded to Alan Kernaghan when the Republic played Northern Ireland in that all-or-nothing World Cup qualifier. With his Bangor roots the centre-half was very obviously qualified for the North but he chose instead to opt for Jack Charlton and the Republic. The Windsor response was as inevitable as it was unpleasant.
While the debate about an all-Ireland football team does rear its head from time to time, other sports like rugby and hockey have played under one national banner for years. There is occasional tension in the relationships, particularly when Northern players are overlooked in controversial circumstances. And the slightly surreal situation hasn't been without its entertaining little cameos and sideshows.
During an especially fallow period for the country's rugby team a few years ago a seasoned forward, with numerous appearances for Ulster under his belt, was selected for his first Irish cap. When he arrived at training that night, so the story goes, he expressed his amazement to his team-mates. "I can't believe it," he said. "I've played 20 times for my country and now I'm going to play for Ireland." He was only half-joking.
Nobody, though, is chuckling at the talent drain that has taken Teresa Duffy, James McIlroy, Gareth Turnbull and now Dermot Donnelly into the welcoming arms of the BLE. These defections scratch the seemingly smooth veneer of sporting life here and play on fears and apprehensions that run very deep. Donnelly and the rest are perfectly entitled to act as they have but their erstwhile athletics bosses are clearly irked.
The men and women who run athletics here have their own little fiefdom and inevitably they want to protect that just as much as they can. As one high profile athlete after another declares for the Republic, the continued existence of a Northern Ireland team becomes that bit harder to justify. And if Northern Ireland's athletics autonomy disappears, so too do all the little perks that international competition brings. The equation is a straightforward one - no more Northern Ireland teams, no more all-expenses paid foreign junkets. They know the stakes are high and that is why they have spent the last week desperately trying to hold on to what they have.
