Freshers ineligible for top cup games
The move stemmed from a GAA Congress recommendation to alleviate burnout amongst elite young hurlers and footballers and was passed resoundingly on Saturday.
The ruling applies only to Division One clubs meaning that fresher students in lower colleges will be eligible to participate for their senior GAA college outfits. The decision will avoid a repeat of the 2007 scenario where Joe Canning spearheaded LIT to Fitzgibbon Cup success when he was only a fresher student in the college.
The eligibility rulings for fresher competitions were further modified at Saturday’s AGM to ensure that only U21 players can play fresher hurling or football, while any student who has previously played in a Higher Education competition is not permitted to feature at fresher level if they enrol in another third-level institution.
Both measures were introduced to ensure a level playing field at fresher level and avoid a repeat of instances in recent seasons where players like Mayo footballer Conor Mortimer played for DCU at fresher football level.
The other major ruling that was made at the AGM sees students involved in policing and military studies only eligible to feature in third-level GAA competitions during the first two years of their course. This move was seen as a measure to avoid a repeat of the player eligibility fiasco involving the Garda College that marred this year’s Sigerson Cup competition. While the Garda College will be the principal outfit affected, the ruling will also concern Army students who feature at third-level such as Limerick hurler Andrew O’Shaughnessy who starred for GMIT in the Fitzgibbon Cup earlier this year.
Two high-profile motions were deferred for decision at a later date. First, a CAO proposal that only players aged U25 can participate in third-level GAA and second, a Carlow IT proposal that repeat students and exam-only students are deemed ineligible in third-level competitions.
The first motion was deemed to need more time to be debated on, while the second had a problem with its exact wording. There may be a special AGM called later in the year to debate these motions.
Meanwhile a CAO motion to prevent colleges from registering additional players until January 31 of the academic year was well defeated, Michael McMahon (Athlone IT) was elected the new Higher Education GAA Secretary and Michael O’Malley (DKIT) was elected the new secretary.
It was also announced that a new GAA player online database is to be set up for third-level players, aimed at recording training schedules so as to provide proper information for GAA player burnout debates. The database will be set up by Niall Moyna of DCU and administered by staff at DCU.
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