Time for fresh faces as experiments begin

IT never rains but it pours and this weekend the fixture list is saturated with football games up and down the country as the GAA shakes itself from its all too brief winter hibernation.

All 34 managers, including the mentors of the 10 college teams involved, will be throwing callow but eager youngsters into the fray in the hope that a winter spent mining for new talent has been rewarded with a handful of gems capable of adding that elusive extra 2-3% to the team's strength.

Some managers are planning to experiment more than others. The Kildare team that lines out against Longford in the O'Byrne Cup in Newbridge tomorrow will be unrecognisable from the side that competed in last summer's championship.

In his first competitive game since taking over from Padraig Nolan, John Crofton intends to send out a sizeable chunk of the U21 team that lost the Leinster final to Dublin.

Some of the players handed their chance to shine across the country this weekend will sink; others will swim.

It's a tough climate for teenagers and young men, as Joe Kernan admitted earlier this week, but such are the realities in inter-county football.

Ideally, the optimum environment for testing new talent is to surround them with some seasoned veterans. Thus, while Tomás Ó Flatharta will hand out six debuts in Westmeath's game against Carlow, he will arm them with half a dozen Leinster medallists from 2004.

"It's a time for giving lads a shot at proving themselves," explained Westmeath selector Paddy Collins, "but at the same time, you can't throw in 15 fresh faces and see how they do. You need some experience around them if they're to have a chance. It's about finding a balance."

Even the All-Ireland champions will start with a new blueprint. Mickey Harte will field only four of the team that defeated Kerry last September for their Dr McKenna Cup opener with Down in Omagh.

The difference with Tyrone is the quality of their replacements. Sure, there are one or two making their debuts but three of the men drafted in have two Celtic crosses in their possession. Four others have one apiece.

No wonder, Harte is aiming for a third straight McKenna Cup success although, in Down, they face a tough opener to the group stages even if Paddy O'Rourke like virtually every other manager will be missing some key players like Dan Gordon through college commitments in the same competition.

In Leinster, the most intriguing fixture has to be the meeting of Meath and DCU in Navan. Both were in the full glare of the public eye for the wrong reasons before Christmas and will be anxious to begin 2006 better than they ended 2005.

In Connacht, Mickey Moran and John Maughan begin their new projects in Mayo and Roscommon respectively and both men will be hoping that their efforts are appreciated more with their adopted charges than they were at times in their native counties.

In Munster, Cork and Tipperary take on third-level opposition in the shape of ITT and CIT and if none of that exactly whets the appetite then it is worth remembering that January has thrown up some intriguing plots in the past.

Two years ago, Páidí Ó Sé's arrival in Westmeath propelled the county to the O'Byrne Cup final, where over 14,000 souls jammed into Mullingar's Cusack Park to see them lose eventually to Meath again.

"With himself back down in Ventry, we're not expecting the like of that again for a while," said Paddy Collins, "but then again you'd never know."

Meanwhile, Cork native Sean Farrell has been confirmed as Down hurling manager John Crossey's assistant for the 2006 season.

Farrell joins team trainer Sean Kavanagh in the Mourne men's think-tank. Former manager Jimmy O'Reilly stepped down as a selector last month.

Crossey's charges were back in training in Ballykinlar early last month, preparing for their opening fixture of 2006 a Walsh Cup preliminary round tie with Westmeath, the side that defeated them in last season's Christy Ring Cup final in Mullingar on January 22.