Clubs urged to recruit coaches from within

GAA President Christy Cooney yesterday described payment of club managers as “the most challenging area” facing the association.

Cooney, speaking at yesterday’s All-Ireland Senior Football Championship launch in Kerins O’Rahillys clubhouse in Tralee, echoed comments made by GAA Director General, Páraic Duffy, in his report to Congress that attitudes and mindsets need to change dramatically at grassroots level.

And he hinted the matter may be revisited by GAA chiefs later this year.

Cooney admitted: “Payment of managers is something that is not going away.

“Particularly at club level, it is the most challenging area we have in the association.

“It’s time clubs got to grips with themselves and stop believing that because you come from outside, you have better than what you have got at home.

“We’ve invested enormously as an association developing coaches at club level.

“Why don’t we give them a chance to manage their own teams?

“We have perfect examples at club and inter-county level where people come on board, they are there for a year or two and there hasn’t been a significant difference and in actual fact the side goes backward because there is no one coming behind to take it up.

“We are in difficult economic times so clubs can ill afford to be paying serious money to bring people from outside.

“At the end of the day it won’t make a serious difference to clubs in the long term.

“Short term value isn’t always a gain for us.

“Management are going to do a full review of Congress at our next meeting. We’re going to have a full review of the issues raised in Páraic’s report and then we’ll decide on what course of action we’ll take from there.”

Cooney also revealed that the GAA could be set to reform the structure of the National Leagues next spring with the reintroduction of semi-finals a prospect in order to generate more interest in the concluding rounds of the competition.

This year’s National Hurling League drew heavy criticism after the series of dead-rubber games in the final round and Cooney yesterday confirmed the possibility of bringing back semi-finals, which were last used in 2007, could be on the agenda when the competitions are reviewed by the Central Competitions Control Committee (CCCC).

Cooney said: “If semi-finals are better for the National League, we will look at that. Some people have been saying for some time that we should have semi-finals to create a more competitive edge to the end of the National Leagues, so we are going to look at that over the next couple of weeks.

“We were unlucky with the last round of Division One hurling this year, it did not mean anything for Cork or Galway. The challenge there is to find the Sundays and the dates for it to work and it is something we will have to examine. We will review the leagues as we always do and the CCCC will give us their view.”

But Cooney insisted that it is not viable to introduce a 12-team top flight in the National Hurling League, despite strong criticism of the existing system from Wexford boss Colm Bonnar and Clare manager Ger O’Loughlin whose sides were in Division Two this year.

“My view is that I am not interested in putting 12 teams up in Division One and leaving Division Two disappear, having no competition for teams that want to compete and want to get into Division One in the future.

“With regard to Wexford and Clare, both had the opportunity this year to go up and Wexford have been successful in that.

“We want to strengthen hurling by having reasonable teams in Division Two and I am not keen on going to 12 teams or two groups of six.”

Cooney also praised the performance of New York in last Sunday’s Connacht SFC opener against Galway (2-13 to 0-12) and believes it now erases the prospect of them withdrawing from the competition, which had been mooted by New York board officials last year.

“New York were concerned about their ability to compete at senior level and they were looking at alternatives for the future. But after this weekend they would have no question of withdrawing.

“NY were extremely competitive, they put Galway to the pin of their collars. We pride ourselves in taking a round of our championship away to a place like New York. It’s a great boost for New York and we’re shortly announcing the appointment of a new games promotion officer there.”