No cap on inter-county training sessions, says Kelly

CENTRAL COUNCIL will not be enforcing any form of cap on inter-county training sessions, association president Seán Kelly said yesterday.

However, he did concede that there were particular grounds for concern in relation to demands forced on players involved with more than one intercounty team.

"Nothing has been decided yet. All we were asked by counties was to give them guidelines,'' he stated.

PRO Danny Lynch, in a statement, pointed out that no co-ordinated evaluation had taken place and there was no central record of the extent of training sessions undertaken by individual counties.

However, the Central Council had decided to formulate a policy in regard to regulating training sessions and to do this with the best expertise and experience available.

"This is being done essentially as a response to claims by players of excessive and unreasonable demands being made on them and is in no way intended to diminish levels of fitness or skill.''

Mr Kelly, who has been visiting schools and clubs in Galway for the past two days, said he intended to discuss the issue with the Players' Committee when it is elected.

And he would welcome talks with team managers.

"There has to be a distinction made between senior inter-county teams, junior, minor and U21 teams. They are the kind of guidelines that counties want. They are the kind of guidelines we will be giving.

"The whole thing is part of the process of addressing player welfare. On the one hand, we have done what we can in terms of mileage rates and other facilities, medical and so forth. But in an amateur game you must consider the effects that training sessions have on players.

"There is an awful lot of talk about the unbearable demands that are put on players This should be a way of addressing that.

"There is no question of me or anybody else issuing an edict without having first discussed it with the relevant people.

"It's all really about getting things done within the amateur code, in a sensible way, for the overall benefit of players.

"The easiest thing is to do nothing and continue on ad infinitum and allow all those things to happen. But we have to be responsible and put the player at centre stage and try and address that.

Comments attributed to John O'Mahony and Joe Kernan that it's all about quality and not necessarily quantity make sense.

"It's about being fair to the player as an individual, as distinct to having a group of players on panels and each panel they are on all demanding attention all the time.''