Having April club month merely a token gesture
A second April intended for club-only weekend games is almost upon us and the question remains why. Why the need for such a token gesture when it’s blatantly obvious that the county and club seasons must not be played off in blocks but in unison? Anyone who thinks the forthcoming measure is doing the clubs a massive favour is sorely misled. Those pockets for club championship games many counties had between inter-county activity in mid-summer pre-2018 have now been brought forward to an unreliable weather month.
Last summer, former Kilkenny star Tommy Walsh bemoaned the empty fields in May, June, and July and called for the return of club tournaments to help fill the void. His exasperation is shared by many club players who while they have more exclusive weekends — as many as nine in a lot of counties — are finding they lack in quality. It’s been correctly stressed the April concept was never intended for club championship fixtures and so it has transpired — over 50% of counties didn’t commence championships until the end of June and 11 senior football nine hurling commenced last April. As they will next month, club league matches were played this past weekend and throughout March irrespective of inter-county fixtures. So what is the intention of the April club zone again, please? For county players to play league games for their clubs? But then not every county operates the starred games policy.
A byproduct of cocooning April is the divorcing of the League from the Championship, which does a disservice to the former. It bears all the hallmarks of a blitz now, particularly hurling in which the eight match-days in Division 1A and 1B from Round 1 to the final was intended to be played over nine weekends. It, and the football competition look and feel rushed, which is a shame, especially for the football league which reflects the game better than the Championship in its current guise ever will.
For the second year in a row, bad weather has blighted the competitions but only because the GAA have allowed them to do so with such little wiggle room. The schedule of matches is no longer reliable. For the second year in a row, hurling, which has no business being played on a mass basis in January, concludes on a different date than was planned. The two Division 1 finals have been bundled into one day — sponsors Allianz must be thrilled. Asked in February what would be a personal ambition of his, GAA director general Tom Ryan told SportsJoe.ie that he wanted to give the league a better standing.
To my mind, the league is the best competition we have. And if you’re talking about a shape and a structure to the year, I think the league structures and bigging up the league and making the league a more central part of the GAA and the GAA calendar.
Ryan ruled out the league ever being given Championship status but his sentiment appears genuine as much as other comments of his counter it. For the league to return to its former glory, it must conclude in April but that doesn’t appear to be on Ryan’s radar. In his annual report, he hit out at those that focused on the lack of club championship activity last April. “Hopefully when analysing the benefits of giving April back to the clubs in 2019 and 2020, commentators will attempt a more balanced and rounded appraisal of the subject rather than rushing to judgement based on misunderstood objectives.”
It might just be the GAA that have misunderstood their calendar, though. From a promotional perspective, the six-week break from this Sunday to the start of the Championship on this island is exhausting. Anticipation sure is a rich sauce and the Munster senior hurling championship needs no marketing but the wait is too long.
It was quite the promotional sacrifice to surrender most of September as an inter-county month. It was also easier done because the inter-county season has concluded but all is possible in April, which is more a preparatory period for inter-county than any significant gesture to the clubs. That there are no county games is a pretense. What genuine interest do counties have in fixing the fixtures and seeking that balance between club and county? As the Club Players Association (CPA) highlighted, nobody bothered to ask the GAA’s central fixtures analysts committee chairman Micheál Martin a question from the floor of Congress after he delivered their report. By CPA chairman Micheál Briody’s estimation, 50 delegates left as he spoke.
Admittedly, Martin held a workshop the day previous but you couldn’t mistake the silence for anything other than indifference. April can’t and won’t last as a beacon of the GAA’s commitment to the club because it isn’t one.
