Brennan vows to probe ‘breach’ of training break

by Brendan O’Brien

Thursday, February 26, 2009

CROKE PARK will examine Connacht Council secretary John Prenty’s annual report before deciding whether there is enough evidence to support his claims that some inter-county teams broke the two-month training ban late last year.

Prenty said last week that a "coach and four has been drawn through the regulations and every trick in the book has been used to camouflage what is going on."

Anecdotal evidence suggests that a number of teams met for collective training sessions around the country during the months of November and December.

GAA President Nickey Brennan has yet to see Prenty’s report first-hand but the issue is on the agenda as Director General Paraic Duffy is due to discuss it in his annual report at next April’s Congress.

"We made it absolutely clear — and I’m speaking for Paraic Duffy when I say this as well — that if people have to make us aware of anyone that breached that rule they will be brought to account," said Brennan. "We don’t want to hear about innuendo, we want to hear about facts and proof that people broke it and then we’ll take the necessary action. What I can assure you is that there is no intention on the GAA’s part to tamper with the November, December period.

"It is a closed period, full stop," added the president who was speaking at the launch of the Cadbury’s U21 football championship.

The ban was introduced to protect elite players from over-training and burnout. Brennan believes the issue is finally being recognised on the training paddock but fixture pile-ups continue to cause concern. This weekend’s Leinster U21 football championship tie between Meath and Dublin has been postponed because a number of players are involved in Sigerson Cup, while Kilmacud Crokes forward Mark Vaughan finds himself caught up in a similar club v college dilemma.

"It’s a very tight schedule. Part of our dilemma is trying to get an appropriate calendar to fit everything in. To be fair to the provincial councils, Leinster in particular, they’ve been very good in tweaking some of their fixtures to try to cope with what comes ahead. They weren’t automatically going to know that Crokes were in the (All-Ireland) club final. Credit to the Leinster Council for being able to tweak things a bit."

"It mightn’t be the ideal scenario but, with floodlit pitches, there are more options which weren’t there heretofore."

*Cadbury’s announced yesterday that they are to extend their sponsorship of the U21 football championship for a further three years.

This story appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Thursday, February 26, 2009