Moyna hits back at county bosses

DCU professor Dr Niall Moyna has warned the GAA is in danger of shortening inter-county players’ careers if it doesn’t regulate its fixtures calendar.

In a hard-hitting interview, the DCU professor, who manages the university’s O’Byrne and Sigerson Cup teams, also fears for the club scene and believes colleges will cut GAA scholarships and bursaries if inter-county managers continue to pull rank on student players.

Both Kildare’s Kieran McGeeney and Donegal’s Jim McGuinness have taken issue with the amount of time college football is taking from their players. But Moyna vehemently disputes that, insisting it is the demands placed on the students by their county bosses that is the most pertinent fact.

“The perception among county managers is that we have players from October,” said Moyna, a backroom member of Dublin’s All-Ireland winning team. “December 28 was the first time we had the whole panel together and even on Sunday (against Wicklow) we had eight missing. This notion that these managers have annoys me.

“It’s got to the stage now when the GAA has got to decide what it is.

“I believe the GAA has a huge concern about other sports, namely rugby, and for that reason believe it’s imperative that Gaelic games is a 12-month sport. From my background as a physiologist, that is putting an incredible amount of pressure on our players and careers are going to be shortened. Is the plethora of ACL (cruciate) injuries connected to this? The GAA has got to take the bull by the horns because things are spiralling out of control. We’re spending €20 million plus on preparing inter-county teams. How we can call ourselves amateur is beyond me. Inter-county players are living semi-professional lives in terms of what’s demanded of them.”

However, in Moyna’s opinion, the managers are only responding to what he believes is a flawed All-Ireland championship structure which encourages over-training.

“The GAA have to sit down about this. Just because the provincial system worked for 125 years doesn’t mean it can’t be changed. The situation now is inter-county players are training eight times per championship game. We’re the only sport in the world for that. That’s 40 sessions for five games! Why would you become a club manager with figures like that?”

Moyna is deeply concerned about the impact inter-county Gaelic games is having on the club scene; so much, in fact, he cautions it could suffer a similar fate to All-Ireland League rugby.

“In DCU, we have a policy where the club has preference. They’re not obliged to train or play with DCU if their club has championship matches. Until we get back to that ethos, where the club comes first, we’re going to find ourselves in trouble. I’m worried about where the club and where club football is going because if things continue as they are going, the scene will die, just like the AIL.”

Moyna also senses universities are beginning to ask questions about the lack of return from their GAA scholarships and will soon consider cutting them if inter-county managers ride roughshod over their teams.

“I think they will. Athletics is huge in DCU and the university is reaping rewards from the money its investing in athletes like Fionnuala Britton. Then you come to GAA and you have guys on scholarships who have only played one or two times for you because of orders from inter-county managers.

“What you might see happen is counties saying ‘whatever you’re getting (in a scholarship), we’ll pay you’.

“If you can’t be given ample time to prepare for Sigerson and Fitzgibbon competitions, then there’s no point in playing in them. There might have to be a change in rule when no inter-county seniors or U21s can play in the Sigerson because at the moment we’re asking for far too much from the same bunch of guys. I can see the universities at some point thinking why should they put all this time and effort in when you don’t have the players for training?

“At the weekend, (UCD GAA development officer) Dave Billings did an article where he pointed out UCD have 40 sports and if the GAA don’t take it seriously, why should the universities pay any money for them?

“His point was well made. I want the guys to play for their counties but right now I’m a manager with both hands tied behind my back. The universities, we’re stuck in between the county and the club. We played games before Christmas when we only had four of our senior players available to us. We want them to play with their counties and they’re given enormous slack to play but there are some dictatorial managers out there and it comes down to communications issues. They think they’re top of the pile.”