Crokes boss Carr backs St Patrick’s Day club slot
Fixture congestion has again raised its head in recent weeks with some of the Dublin club’s players asked to skip other duties to concentrate on their decider date with Crossmaglen Rangers. Mark Vaughan and Cian O’Sullivan missed the Sigerson finals weekend in Cork earlier this month while Dublin’s senior and U21 sides have also had to make do without their Crokes contingents.
Dublin manager Pat Gilroy suggested last week that the extension of the club championship three months into the new year seemed excessive for just two rounds and mooted the prospect of it being completed prior to Christmas.
Carr is against that proposal. He argued: “My feeling is that the club finals in Croke Park on St Patrick’s Day are a key element of the GAA calendar.
“It is well documented what happened to the Railway Cup once they took it out of that St Patrick’s Day slot. The club is at the fulcrum of the GAA. There are threats to the GAA going forward. In the current times, the importance of good clubs, especially in urban areas around this county is vital. To be able to push this forward on an occasion like St Patrick’s Day, it is critical that this slot is maintained.”
Dublin’s U21 side defeated Meath by a point in the Leinster Championship Saturday despite the absence of their Crokes panellists and Carr made no apologies for the club’s stance. By Tuesday, Carr will have had his players exclusively under his wing for a fortnight — a first in the side’s exhaustive 14-month campaign.
“The people who were making the fixtures were not aware of the pressures lads were under. We took absolutely no joy in doing what we did but some guys were exhausted with injuries. We try to make reasonable calls. If the club championship is to continue to elevate itself there has to be an understanding that the club must come first for a period of time. The Crossmaglens of this world have been in a position to do that for years.”
As one might expect from a man about to manage his boyhood club team in the competition’s finale, Carr is a passionate advocate for the very concept of the club championships. The future, he feels, is bright.
He has seen first-hand how the event has matured in recent years having played as a wing-back for Meath’s Walterstown against Nemo Rangers in the 1984 final which was held in early February in Athlone.
“The club championship is going to grow out of all recognition in the next few years. It is really capturing peoples’ imagination. There has been that encouragement from Nickey Brennan during his tenure. We all look towards the first and third Sunday in September. But the most difficult championships to win in gaelic games have to be the All-Ireland hurling and football club championships. Look at the amount of games you have to play and the difficulties of getting through.
“We have played 15 games of championship football to get this far. It is an enormous journey and, to borrow an expression from another code, it is a Champions League.”
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