Provinces are not putting players first

God love Jarlath Burns for trying but in the wake of Louth manager Colin Kelly’s impassioned criticism of the six-day turnaround his team suffered on Saturday Burns’ attempt to justify it was never going to work.

“The GAA has done an awful lot to do away with the six-day turnaround and hopefully next year that will be sorted,” he said on The Sunday Game after Louth followed up their loss to Meath the previous weekend with another to Derry.

“But you have to understand the way fixtures work: the Leinster Council sets out its fixtures then the counties fit their club championships around it and the qualifiers are drawn. Now, if you are going to pull that Meath-Louth Leinster championship match back by one week, you’re going to affecting all the club players in Louth and Meath because there was a round of championship games in there.