Brennan to put players’ welfare first

THE possibility of the National Leagues reverting back to a pre-Christmas start must be given serious consideration, according to GAA President Nickey Brennan.

The hurling and football leagues have enjoyed a huge boost in popularity since their restructuring to a calendar year format, five years ago.

However, Brennan has already served notice that rejuvenating the club scene will be a central aspect of his three-year term and re-instating the old league structure, he believes, may benefit clubs and their players.

"To get extra space into the club scene, should we bring the leagues back before Christmas and play perhaps three games in the autumn?

"One thing is certain, it's not going to affect the club championships because the players that are involved won't play with their counties anyway until they're out of the county championship, so that's not going to be a problem."

With numerous grades in two codes at club and inter-county level to cater for, regulating an annual fixtures list for Gaelic Games can be an impossible task, but Brennan seems determined to tackle it.

The Kilkenny man hinted at abolishing county Junior Football and Intermediate hurling championships which, he said, are causing fixture headaches and sucking money from the coffers of county boards.

Changes, he warned, are essential and the controversial Tommy Murphy Cup is another competition whose credentials will be seriously examined over the course of the coming seasons.

Both All-Ireland senior finals have been brought forward this year because of the Ryder Cup and Brennan accepts that a valid argument could be made that, if that can happen this year, why not again in the future. Indeed, why not bring them further forward to make more room for the club scene?

Clearly, there will be few sacred cows under Mr Brennan's watch and the minor and U21 grades did not escape his eye yesterday either. The quality of both grades is not the issue, he insisted the welfare of players is.

"If you look at the age profile of the senior level in recent years, it has come down a lot and many of those players are also playing in multiple grades or are dual players. My thinking on this is more about the welfare of these players who are serving a number of managers.

"They're being pulled and dragged by a number of different managers who are all at different stages of their competitions. The training is often not co-ordinated between them. It's no wonder these players are feeling the strain and getting all kinds of injuries."

Brennan touched on discipline and hopes to tackle the situation which he calls "ridiculous" whereby a player can accumulate an infinite number of yellow cards without being disciplined.

What he will be very much involved in will be the tightening of all the GAA's much-derided disciplinary structures. An array of alterations were introduced at Congress in Killarney last week, but Brennan warned that more work was needed.

"The Rule Book Task Force is continuing to look at aspects of disciplinary matters.

It will probably mean the work over the (18) months will culminate in a Special Congress at the end of the year. That will hopefully be the final link in the chain, as it were. It will more clearly define how we handle the discipline."

Both Brennan and Director General Liam Mulvihill warned there may be problems in integrating the new structures.

While the Competitions Control Committee and Hearings Committee will be operational at national level almost immediately, the provinces and counties will not utilise the new system, until January 1.

"It might be confusing as to how that will be implemented and we have advised counties that they need to think about that," said Brennan.