O’Neill urges GAA to facilitate dual players

Inter-county dual players should be given the opportunity to line out for their football and hurling teams, says GAA president Liam O’Neill.

Over the past nine days, Cork pair Eoin Cadogan and Damien Cahalane have ended their dual commitments at senior inter-county level to concentrate on football for 2013.

Former dual star Teddy McCarthy yesterday hit out at what he saw as Croke Park’s failure to accommodate Gaelic players who excel in both codes.

O’Neill has indicated he would like to see the GAA do more for dual players.

“It should be left to the player to decide. My worry is that a player would be put under undue pressure to make a decision.

“It must be great to be capable of playing both. I don’t mind players making a choice on which way they go but my concern would be that any player would be put under undue pressure.

“Because as a young person of 19 or 20, how do you know in seven or eight years which one you are really going to excel at?

“Are we putting the players first? If we are putting players first, they should have the freedom to play whichever sport. They are amateur games, after all, and my wish would be that a player who wants to play both codes should be facilitated.

“Some of our top players play football and handball or hurling and handball and there’s no difficulty with that. If you’re allowed to play other codes other than hurling and football, why not inter-change between both?”

Wexford’s senior footballers and hurlers will play within 24 hours of each other in June’s Leinster championships creating a dilemma for dual players Lee Chin and Andrew Shore.

O’Neill said such occurrences are few and far between.

“Generally speaking, you don’t normally get the two county teams out on the one weekend. It’s certainly not on the same day out.

“You have to balance the fixture list — it has a sort of sanctity as well.”

O’Neill revealed Central Council’s decision on a motion to restructure the All-Ireland SHC from next year was pushed back from last month to Saturday week’s meeting as the committee couldn’t come to an agreement on which option to back.

The Hurling Development Committee recommended five teams in both Munster and Leinster play two games at home and away with the top two qualifying for each final while he CCCC want to gradually reduce the teams competing in the Championship from 15 to 13.

“There wasn’t a significant proposal in favour of either proposal,” admitted O’Neill. “They got equal votes and we said that wasn’t a mandate.

“Unfortunately, a significant number of Central Council delegates didn’t vote, which shows that they haven’t discussed it.

“The unfortunate thing about it is that the Championship proposals only matter to the five or six counties. We wanted people to focus on it so we said, ‘Please go home, discuss it and come back mandated’, so we hope to have a definite decision on that.”

O’Neill also said it’s only a matter of time before a Friday night game of prominence at inter-county level is staged.

“The Friday possibility is still there and I’d say that at some stage somebody is going to experiment with a more serious game on a Friday night and I would welcome that,” remarked O’Neill.

“I’d hope that when it happens, the players are taken into consideration, that they want to do it, the counties want to do it and that the supporters want to go. I’ve always said I’m open to that possibility.”

With the International Rules’ first test this October set for an Ulster venue, O’Neill admitted the series’ future is reaching a crucial stage.

“Do we want football? Do we want a compromise game or do we want rough and tumble? It’s as simple as that.

“If we want football, if we want to develop a new game, if we want to use the connection with the Australians to enhance our own game or maybe to learn something from it and give the players the experience of playing against top class sportsmen. But really we have to be honest and say what do we want from it? I want football.”