GAA must still take brave leap to change structures
Last Saturday after months of deliberation, a high-power fixtures group that featured both the president and director-general of the GAA finally unveiled its proposals to Central Council. It’s some progress, we suppose. Last Saturday after months of deliberation, a high-power fixtures group that featured both the president and director-general of the GAA finally unveiled its proposals to Central Council.
You’ve heard of them yourself by now. Moving the All-Ireland quarter-finals and finals forward by a week to allow more time to run club championships off. Running off the All-Ireland Club championship in the one calendar year. All for the express purpose of helping ensure some championship football for the club player in the good months of the year and in its own way stave off burnout.
It made us think of Aaron Kernan. His premature inter-county retirement at 30 years of age was less because of the exaggerated demands of the new McGeeney regime as the fact he was still training with his club in January for an All-Ireland Club championship seven out of the last 10 years.
Bernard Brogan has also talked about how so many months and years on the road has affected the inter-county form and chances of players from Ballymun Kickhams and St Vincent’s.
Saturday’s proposals, if passed, should help those hamsters on the treadmill. A lot more hamsters that could be helped though. Namely those expected to play Sigerson, O’Byrne and Hastings Cups and National League football in the months of January and February.
Saturday did little for them.
The problem with the GAA or any subcommittee it establishes is that everything is incremental, piecemeal. You can only change so much because the various constituencies and power-brokers will only allow so much.
At some point though the GAA will have to take a much broader and extensive review of its fixtures and competition structures in the interest of player welfare and optimising the potential of the games.
When it does, or to ensure it does, here are a few things for it to ponder.
What is the function of the National League? Is the GAA still working of the premise and assumption it is still secondary to the championship and mere preparation for the championship? Because here’s a reality we’ve never heard stated before, and certainly not acknowledged by the authorities – for some counties the league is as important as the championship. In fact for some counties it is even more important than the championship.
Take virtually every county in Division Four. In the preliminary round of the championship Offaly play Longford. The winner plays Dublin. Big game, big crowd now that it’ll be in Croker, but very likely a heavy defeat too. A Leinster championship isn’t a realistic goal for them. Nor is a place in the All Ireland quarter-finals. But promotion out of Division Four is. The league with a proper schedule of games will be a proper gauge of their progress. That’s why players with the likes of Offaly stick around for it and then head off to the States before the qualifiers. It’s why they break winter bans.Because for them February 1 is their August 1. For them that’s “when the serious stuff starts”.
The irony is the rest of us won’t take seriously those who take the league serious. All our attention is on Division One, which is neither one thing nor the other. In many ways it’s a terrific competition – a set schedule with evenly-matched games. Look at its opening round alone: Kerry-Mayo, Cork-Dublin; the championship will be into August before it throws up games remotely as glamorous as them. Yet they’re in February. Six months out from August “when the serious stuff starts”. Too long.
The league won’t change until the provincial championships change. But some day they will.
They’ll have to.
Isn’t there a case for moving the U21 football championship into the summer months? Play it midweek like its hurling counterpart? It would free up the early months of the year for the colleges and increase the number and likelihood of young talented players sticking around to play for their club during the summer.
If we were really serious about player welfare and especially player improvement, how about no football or hurling in January or February at all? Not just because the games are essentially summer sports. Every other sport has some offseason, regardless of how many teams you play for.
Basketball, for instance, is a seven-month competitive sport. But a couple of months after its season is over, its best players work individually on their technical game, often with a coach supervising them. Maybe they’re extending their shot to three-point range, working on a new spin move. Without a game they have time to get worse to get better.
That culture isn’t pervasive in the GAA, especially in football. There always seems to be another game and competition just around the corner. You’re less inclined to work on kick-passing a ball 30 yards with your weaker foot and have the ball repeatedly spiral out over the sideline when you’re going to be judged the following week. GAA players still train too much but practise too little.
The best setups and players still find time and a way, but in-season it’s always a squeeze. A lot of players have a lot of managers at this time of year but too few coaches. But how about if they were being coached to work on that left foot kickpass with no squeeze, no one to judge, no game to play for another few months? A better technical and rested player would be in everyone’s interest. Another way less would be more.
