Moyna seeks ‘DCU Four’ clarification

AT least two of the ‘DCU Four’ may yet play some part in the 2006 Datapac Sigerson Cup which begins today.

Ross Munnelly (Laois), Dessie Dolan (Westmeath), Shane Ryan (Dublin) and Diarmuid Kinsella (Wexford) were banned for 12 weeks under new rules drafted by the Higher Education Committee (HEC) last September before having their suspensions lifted on a technicality earlier this month.

Though that freed the quartet to line out for their counties, it remained unclear whether they would be eligible for Sigerson duty.

DCU Director of Sport Dr Niall Moyna is to write to the HEC for clarification.

HEC chairman Jack Kennedy said they would “consider any document on any matter” prior to DCU’s opener on February 15.

That gives the HEC plenty of time to come to a decision and their next executive meeting is at the finals of the British Universities competition in Birmingham on February 10.

“We will not play any of those players unless we get official clarification from the Higher Education to play them but we believe that some of those players should be entitled to play, based on the current (new) rules,” said Dr Moyna.

Under Rule 31 of Ard Oideachais’ regulations, a player must sit a course that allows him to earn 60 credits in an academic year if he is to be eligible for Sigerson Cup.

The four players were originally banned for three months when, having played for DCU in a pre-Christmas match against Sligo IT, it was deemed they didn’t meet the academic criteria to do so.

If they did not meet the criteria then, it is hard to envisage a scenario that makes them eligible now. “If they did play (in the Sigerson Cup), they would be leaving themselves open to an objection under Rule 31,” explained HEC vice-chairman Michael O’Malley.

“If that was upheld they could find themselves ineligible for their county in the championship or at least until the end of the league.”

Dr Moyna rejected the suggestion that DCU were being made scapegoats over what has been a highly emotive issue in third-level GAA for the past decade, but insisted that the criteria regarding eligibility needed to be re-examined if similar controversial incidents were to be avoided in future.

“There’s a big issue there about what is part-time, what is full-time, what is a student. There are students in third-level institutions who are on 12-week FÁS schemes and we have graduate students who have requirements of 60 credits which is the same as an undergraduate. That has to be looked into by the Higher Education authorities.”