John Fogarty: Seán Kelly’s plan the basis for Gaelic football’s future

Nearly 10 years old, Seán Kelly’s All-Ireland SFC proposal remains one of the strongest we have seen. Plus John Fogarty explains how perception cost Davy Fitzgerald the Galway job

Seán Kelly’s proposal is nearly 10 years old but it remains one of the best solutions on offer, says our columnist. Picture: Inpho/James Crombie

To be fair to former GAA president John Horan, he didn’t have to present Proposal B last Saturday. With the split season officially commencing next year along with the first July All-Ireland finals, he has left his mark on the football year.

But ownership of the proposals was pretty thin on the ground, two members of the calendar review fixtures taskforce (Stephen Barker and John Prenty) were openly against it, at least two were going to vote for it, and the prospect of the GPA chief executive Tom Parsons, Cork CEO Kevin O’Donovan, Wexford chairman Micheál Martin or their fellow committee member Conor O’Donoghue commending the motion to the floor might not have worked as well as hoped.

As the man who got that band together, Horan was the most appropriate person and most senior to deliver it. However, many delegates already knew how little he thought of the provincial championships.

In an interview with Na Fianna TV during the first lockdown in June of last year, he said one of the organisation’s “big challenges is to tackle the monster that is the traditional feature of the GAA that is the provincial championships.”

That challenge brought itself to bear at the weekend as the vote for Proposal B fell almost 10% shy of coming into operation for the 2022 season.

Horan, who knows a thing or two about votes having won his presidential race by a landslide, clearly realised the numbers were not adding up when he suggested a deferral in the running of the All-Ireland SFC League until 2023 by which stage the creases in the format would be ironed out.

By the time next summer comes around, it will be two years since the B championship was to make its debut. Horan has had to be patient to see that plan of his come together and he was prepared to wait again. A deferral of a championship structure against calls for a deferral of the motion was still a deferral.

“We are still not ready to say goodbye to the provinces,” former GAA trustee and Tipperary chairman John Costigan said last month. The late Eugene McGee realised the same when his Football Review Committee (FRC) jettisoned their most radical schemes and forwarded the first four eight-team provincial conference model in 2013 after former GAA president Christy Cooney floated the idea of reshaping the provincial boundaries 10 years ago. That FRC proposal never made it to the Clár.

Saturday made clear that the provincial championships — lopsided as they are in quality and number and tired as they are in their current guise — will have to be incorporated in a new All-Ireland structure. As GAA director general Tom Ryan said on Saturday, they don’t have to go back to square one with a system for the 2023 season. Likewise, Parsons’s claim that another motion should be on the Clár at February’s Annual Congress is by no means unreasonable, but for now at least retaining the link between the provinces and the All-Ireland must be a part of a memorandum of understanding.

That doesn’t have to mean they are the sole means of entering the All-Ireland series. Nearly 10 years old, Seán Kelly’s All-Ireland SFC proposal remains one of the strongest we have seen, providing Sam Maguire Cup qualification based on league and provincial finishes.

Kelly envisages the eight provincial finalists as well as the top eight in the Allianz League who haven’t reached their provincial decider, qualifying for a knock-out Sam Maguire Cup, the other 16 contesting the Tailteann Cup.

At the same time, Kelly’s idea shouldn’t fall where Proposal B did in not being updated. Streamlining the league so that Division 1 becomes two groups of six would open the competition to more development.

By reducing the length of the league, it may also allow for a round robin format at the outset of the provincial championships for lower league teams whereby they would have a running start when facing stronger counties in provincial semi-finals or finals.

And does Kelly’s Sam Maguire Cup have to be knock-out or is there an opportunity for round games as there would be for smaller counties? One of the problems with the Super 8 was the lack of championship round robin games for weaker counties. If they were to be a round-robin section for each, there would be parity.

Kelly’s strong media profile wasn’t always to the liking of officials who remain in positions of power within the GAA. However, it would be a shame if his model was to be ignored on the basis of personality clashes.

It is incumbent on those who either by sitting on their hands or lobbying against a proposal they helped to formulate come up with an answer soon. Otherwise, they are exactly what the Club Players Association (CPA) say they were.

Galway saga all about where you come from

Former Wexford manager Davy Fitzgerald. Photo by Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile

As Davy Fitzgerald alluded to on The Late Late Show on Friday night, it appeared he was on course to be the next Galway hurling manager before Henry Shefflin was recommended.

What has since emerged is how upset Galway officials were at an article that appeared on The Clare Echo website last Tuesday, which claimed that Fitzgerald’s proposed management team would be predominantly from his native county.

In actual fact, most of those that Fitzgerald was targeting for roles hailed from Galway.

Fitzgerald had not been in a position to name his assistants as some were still involved in the Galway championship action and other county set-ups.

St Thomas’ was one club from where he was hoping to draw coaching expertise.

The damage done by the perception Fitzgerald was transplanting a group into an inferior Galway combined with the premature reports he all but had the position was terminal.

Kilkenny great Shefflin will bring class and prestige although a Leinster SHC clash with the Cats will be watched with intrigue — Galway and Kilkenny are in separate Allianz Division 1 groups so unless they face off in the knock-out stages of the league there will be a wait until the summer.

His proclamation to Brian O’Driscoll in July that he would never manage against his own applied to his club Shamrocks and there is an element of understanding if not belief in his county that he wasn’t prepared to wait for Brian Cody to depart.

On the other hand, he will be plotting against TJ and Richie Reid, Adrian and Darren Mullen, Eoin Cody, Darragh Corcoran, and possibly Joey Holden.

With such a sizeable contingent from the club in Cody’s group, he may as well be facing his own.

GAA should make haste for players

GPA CEO Tom Parsons at the GAA's Special Congress in Croke Park. Picture: INPHO/James Crombie

The perception of the Gaelic Players Association (GPA) as an elitist group is growing old as is the idea they will simply down their Size 5s and hurleys now that their wishes have been granted.

Now that they are largely funded by the GAA and have protocols in place in the event of difficulties, strike is an even more unlikely prospect especially when money isn’t exactly flowing right now.

That’s not to say they couldn’t be disruptive and going by the civil but firm words of GPA chief executive Tom Parsons they may be if change is postponed any longer than next spring’s Annual Congress when the Allianz Leagues will up and running.

“We have enough time between now and February,” he said on Saturday. “We can’t be slow. Don’t tell me February is not possible. Every year that is missed is potentially another year gone for the development of footballers and potentially another year where maybe players in lower counties decide to opt out because they don’t see a pathway to success.

“If it takes burning the midnight oil and getting in a room all day on a Friday, Saturday and Sunday, out of respect for the amount of effort the players put in in having these conversations with county executives and managers, and the amount of debate, don’t tell me we can’t come to next February with stronger proposals.”

Whatever the proposal, the players deserve expediency.

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