O’Neill ‘nervy’ on Considine’s club call

Last week, in these pages, Irish Examiner columnist and Kilmallock senior hurling manager, Tony Considine, called for an open draw to be introduced to the AIB All-Ireland Club Championships.

Yesterday, at the announcement that AIB would sponsor those championships for the 21st season, GAA President Liam O’Neill addressed that question.

“We had a motion a number of years ago from Antrim to do just that, and I think it fell short by very few votes.

“Whether that was because people were hit with it quickly or not, I’m not quite sure but there are implications — the exposure in March for example.”

With the club finals attracting crowds of 20,000 to 30,000, it was pointed out however that a league game involving Dublin would probably double that.

But O’Neill countered: “If we put county games ahead of club games, guess who would be the first group to say you are putting the counties ahead of the clubs? It hasn’t been fully teased out. We’re always nervous about interfering with a brand that still works and before you go away from that brand you would want to be sure of what you’re bringing in. At one stage the interprovincials worked in March and then their time came.”

There is more to the suggestion that the club championships should be played to a conclusion in the same calendar year than simple exposure, however. There is the extra demand on the players, the clash with the inter-county league fixtures and the negative impact on those counties who still have clubs involved, and the inequity of a system that sees the Galway champions in an All-Ireland semi-final unopposed, the Antrim champions with a far easier route than anyone in Leinster or Munster.

O’Neill is mindful of all this and isn’t in fact averse to Considine’s suggestion. “The idea of the club championship in one year is a good idea but you have to think out the implications for everything else.

“And if somebody sits down and does that or we decide to put a group together to look at it and how it would affect us — and the fixture planning group is probably the best group to do that, we may well ask them to look at it if there are enough strong enough requests to do that. But it can only be done in that scenario. At the moment, it’s not hot on the agenda. I’m never adverse to people saying something should be looked at but it has to come from somewhere inside the organisation. We won’t be guided fully by Tony!”

One thing that is very much on the agenda however is the Football Review Committee, set up by O’Neill himself. “We’re delighted by the amount of work they’ve done.

“They’ve had three or four thousand submissions, met probably 1,0000-plus people face to face — it’s the biggest engagement ever done by any sporting organisation on one of its constituent games. We’re completely open-minded, sifting proposals through at Coiste Bainistí level and putting them to Congress.”

And the timeframe for that? “Whenever they (the committee) are ready. I’m in no hurry, I don’t mind how long this takes.

“It’s not going to affect next year’s Championship anyway.”