On the road again
EVEN after a lifetime in the GAA, Eamon Grieve hates these weekends.
This morning he oversees the migration of the Antrim football squad and their backroom team from Casement Park to Fraher Field, Dungarvan. It is a punishing four hour, 228.84 mile jaunt — one way — and Grieve must make sure the squad get there as comfortably and safely as possible ahead of tomorrow’s Division 2B tie with John Kiely’s side.
Grieve, the former Board treasurer and ex-football boss, is no stranger to this kind of trip.
“Naturally we look at the fixtures when they come out in an effort to plan ahead but the problem tends to be that we can’t move ahead without the okay of the managers. Depending on the circumstances, they can surprise you with what they want or they don’t want. Their decisions may depend on the time of season, or how the team is fixed in their division.
“But” he stressed, “what we always try and do is to do the best for the players. I played for ten years back in the sixties and I knew that back then, the Board were always looking out for the players.”
Grieve’s planning process began almost a week and a half ago. “We work out a schedule and book things accordingly. Naturally the coaches and the hotels are priorities but we must also consider the places we will stop for food on the way down and again on the return journey.”
Player comfort is the byword for Grieve. The coaches are top of the range vehicles from local firms, while the minimum rating for their overnight stays is three star.
He continues: “The cost of the bus alone is £1,000. We will leave Saturday morning around 11am and plan to have lunch maybe an hour or two later. This is organised in advance with a booking made for 42 people and that is going to cost up to a tenner sterling a head.”
There will be little time for sight seeing. The trip is run on a tight deadline.
“It is back onto the bus and straight to the hotel. We are staying in the Ramada Viking Hotel. We have stayed there on a couple of occasions and they are always extremely good to us.”
Dinner is served shortly after arrival at 6pm. The meal, which is normally a roast, is a standard three course option.
“If we have time we will have a small bit of lunch, tea and sandwiches and the like before the match on a Sunday. The players usually eat only a little while the rest of the guys can eat for Africa! After the match, it is back on the bus as quickly as possible and we try and get a portion of the road behind us before we stop for the evening meal.”
“Then it is back on the bus and back to Casement around ten or eleven.”
He doesn’t baulk at the nasty question about money. “The cost is roughly £5,000 (€7,438.12) for a weekend.”
Grieve notes that the issue of distance isn’t confined to competitive games in football. “Football is one thing. But hurling is the biggest problem for us. Naturally we have long trips in the National Hurling league but that is understandable for competitive games. Geographically we are tucked up in one corner of Ireland and because of that the effort to keep hurling going up here is a huge job. It isn’t a case of turning to neighbouring counties any weekend if we want to organise serious challenge games. Our lads are looking to head south when they want to play serious games, and that applies to our seniors, our U21s and our minors. Organising challenge games is costing us a bomb.
“Hurling is really the issue. We have made this point to Nickey Brennan and it is something that he is aware of. Players want to be treated well and looked after and rightly so.”
IN Kerry, they do things slightly differently according to County secretary Eamon O’Sullivan.
The travel issue is one which is keeping him busy these days. The League champions have already had a trip to Castlebar, are heading to Breffni Park to play Fermanagh tomorrow and have away dates with Donegal, and Dublin to contend with.
“There are a number of issues. Flying would be our first preference but it is seldom available due to a lack of options regarding flights and the cost. The preference in Kerry is to travel by car rather by coach and has been for years. This weekend for example we have two cars out of Cork and one from Limerick. It suits people to make their own way to the game — and more importantly they are not tied to any schedule on the way home.”
But that doesn’t mean O’Sullivan isn’t involved in travel arrangements.
“We have to look after players on the way up and the way down by organising those cars and the drivers. We try and ensure that none of the first 15 have to drive before a game. So we have a pool of drivers drawn from selectors, county board officers, the team doctor and the like to help in that regard.”
O’Sullivan aims to book hotels three of four weeks in advance of any away game but has discovered that such requests are becoming more and more difficult.
“I’m finding more and more hotels are offering weekend breaks at this time of the year. As a result they are not keen in taking bookings for rooms for just one night — they prefer to get a Friday and Saturday night reservation which is perfectly understandable. The Kerry hurlers have a game up in Mayo in the first weekend in March and I had to ring three hotels before I could get accommodation.”
Though the footballers are garnering all the headlines after their League and championship double last year, O’Sullivan makes it clear that there is no corner cutting for the secondary code in the Kingdom.
“The hurlers travel the same way, stay the same way and are treated the same way. And it shouldn’t be any different.”
Hotels and mileage aren’t the only expenses that O’Sullivan must contend with.
“There can be a massive difference in the cost of meals on a Saturday, and the cost of the same meal on a Sunday. Sunday prices are dearer as it’s such a busy family day. We would spend three or four hundred extra on an evening meal on a Sunday than we would on a Saturday.”
O’Sullivan agrees with the cost estimates of Antrim’s Grieve but makes two interesting points.
Croke Park have a special allowance for overnights stays which helps ease the financial burden.
But more importantly the further Kerry, or any other team in the top flight, progress in the National League means they are entitled to more monies from the central pool system.
TYRONE have their sights firmly on taking a big slice of that pie and in their efforts to do so are making a little bit of history this weekend.
The team set out yesterday for tonight’s assignment with Cork — the first time, bar an All-Ireland championship outing, that they have devoted two nights to one league game.
Tyrone secretary Dominic McCaughey has been planning for the Páirc Uí Rínn game for the past eight weeks.
“The big problem here in Tyrone is that we don’t have great travel facilities, like a train network or an airport, that are suitable for a trip like this.
“But we also felt, following consultation with Mickey Harte, that if you flew down on the day, you would not be properly prepared for a game later that evening.”
The bus trip may be tedious but the players have their own techniques to burn up the minutes. Some listen to I-pods, there is an active card school, while some shock, horror, read the sports section. For a laugh perhaps.
Harte’s fingerprints are all over this trip. He wanted a hotel which would cater for all their pre-match needs and so Dundrum House Hotel in Tipperary is the base for the NFL Division 1A pacesetters.
McCaughey continued: “We planned to be there on Friday night around 11pm. Then on Saturday we would have our usually pre-match build up and head for Cork around 3.30pm. After the game we head back to the hotel, overnight again before leaving for Tyrone early on Sunday morning.”
The hurlers don’t require such complicated arrangements, but the coaches, and meals are all on a par with anything that their footballing counterparts receive.
“We are happy with the floodlit system — in fact we are playing all but one of our National League Games under lights. But one of the side effects of the night games is that you may have to spend two overnights as opposed to the one when you are playing on a Sunday afternoon.
“It is something that the GAA will have to certainly look at in regards to the monies they give to the counties. A lot of our players had to take a day or half day off work on Friday to make this trip which is a big ask for amateurs.”
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