Yes, the time has come for change
Pastimes? A quick check on dictionary.com you will find the following definition: Pastime: “an activity or entertainment which makes time pass pleasantly.”
You would hardly call notorious GAA winter training sessions as a pleasant way to pass one’s time?
Ask any footballer of hurler, county or club, what their favourite pastimes are: golf, horse racing, gambling and reading will be among the answers but don’t expect to find Gaelic football or hurling on the list.
Our national games are now only a ‘pastime’ for the supporters. While the main aims of the association still hold true, the games it sustains have long since stopped being a pastime for their participants.
The commitment and dedication given by club and county players alike demands a competition structure that adequately serves their interest. Unfortunately, while our games have been transformed beyond recognition over the past 127 years, the pace at which the competition structure has developed has sadly lagged behind.
If everyone is honest, they’d call the leagues and January competitions for what they now are — irrelevant. No credence is given to them when the end of year reviews are written and awards handed out.
Every team, player and manager is effectively judged on their summer form and how they perform in the Championship. Unfortunately with the current Championship structure, this amounts to three games or less for 50% of counties. Six months training for three games? In what other sporting organisation would this be tolerated? If you sat down today with a blank canvass, ignoring provincial boundaries, you certainly wouldn’t come up with what we have today. You don’t have to look too far to find a vastly superior competition structure drawn up from scratch.
The Heineken Cup provides plenty of food for thought when we compare it against our own GAA set-up. The fact that it is a professional sport only strengthens the argument against our own system. Surely as amateurs the very least players should be given is a competitive season that justifies the commitment and dedication?
The GAA community expect and demand a professional approach by its players but use tradition and politics as barriers to reforming the competitive landscape.
I might sound bitter because of Monaghan’s early departure from the Championship this year, but I have held this opinion for a long time and seeing three of last year’s ‘sacred’ provincial finalists out of competitive action after two games and before July 4 only reinforces my opinion.
Watching events at Killarney yesterday only confirmed how outdated the provincial structures have become. In the run-up and even during yesterday’s telecast from Killarney, all you could hear was how much a Munster championship meant to these teams, as was illustrated in the intensity on show. However the players had barely left the field and already commentators were jumping in to dismiss its relevance, believing it won’t matter a damn if they don’t win the main prize in September! And while it was a great spectacle with a bumper crowd, does it justify the pastings handed out to the other four teams in the province in the run-up?
In life the saying goes ‘You never miss what you never had’; therefore inter-county players don’t take up too much time thinking about alternative existences as a county footballer/hurler. Comparisons to great teams from the past and pressure to uphold tradition means that today’s GAA stars are still benchmarked against what has gone before as opposed to how they can shape the future. Today’s players deserve more than what is offered at present.
We deserve a system in which they can focus their training and preparation towards a decent number of meaningful and competitive games during the summer months.
One in which they can experience playing teams from all around the country in championship competition, and where their whole season will not be torn up in shreds by an individual refereeing mistake, untimely short-term injury, or short term suspension for what might be a relatively minor misdemeanour.
Ironically many counties, who on the one hand might voice disapproval at changing the inter-county championship structure, have already changed their own county’s Championship format. Round-robin type systems are being run successfully in many counties for the past number of years and have done nothing to dilute the integrity of the competition. Why then should we fear that it might happen if something similar was introduced at inter-county level? People will always put up barriers to change, unnerved by what it may bring and beliefs that as a move away from ‘tradition’ is in some ways sacrilegious.
Many alternative championship structures have been put forward by various commentators. I have my own thoughts but would need a lot longer than the confines of this article to accurately discuss. All I know is that what we have at present needs to be changed.
The association’s founding fathers couldn’t possibly envisaged our national pastimes would develop into the semi-professional organisation it is today. Considering the complex political landscape of the GAA, making major changes to our Championship system would be difficult to say the least. Tradition, provincial imperatives, fixture scheduling and many other issues stand in the way. However just because something is difficult doesn’t mean it should not be dealt with. With so many competent people involved, surely it’s a case of getting the right blend of people together to have an open an honest debate? The GAA is no longer a pastime; it’s big business. While change might be seen as an affront to what has gone before, today’s changes become tomorrow’s tradition. Passion for the sport, local rivalries and appetite for success will always guarantee the integrity of our games in the way it was envisaged in Thurles 127 years ago.
