Fitzmaurice reiterates call for overhaul of Championship

Eamonn Fitzmaurice believes the Championship is in urgent need of rescheduling and has given his support to former GAA president Sean Kelly’s proposal to restructure the competition.

The Kerry manager believes it can be run off over a more condensed timeframe with a later start. His team played two games in the space of just six days and will have waited four weeks by the time they face Cork in Sunday week’s Munster final.

“What I’d love to see done is the scheduling tightened in terms of the inter-county season and the club season. I’d love to see a club season at the start of the year and you get players up to a certain level of fitness.

“You come in then and you have your inter-county season, league and Championship, run off pretty much every second week, whatever length of time that takes.

“I know there is an argument that the GAA like to have their finals in September but you could still do that. You could just start your competitions a bit later.

“While that’s going on, the club player could still play county league and whatever minus their inter-county players and then you come back once you’re knocked out of the Championship. You’re only going to have two teams going all the way to September. Everybody comes back and finishes off their club season and there’s a closed season as well because a closed season just doesn’t exist.”

He also has sympathy for the hurling teams whose 2013 seasons have already finished.

“For Offaly’s hurlers... hurling is a game you want to play and you want to see played in the summer and they’re gone out of the Championship in June. The Kerry hurlers are finished already after getting to a Christy Ring final.

“You just wonder why so many games have to be stacked into the first two or three months when the weather is so bad and people don’t have a pile of interest in going to games.”

Fitzmaurice endorses Kelly’s proposal to link league and Championship before dividing the competition into Sam Maguire and Tommy Murphy Cups.

“I think Sean Kelly’s idea has a lot of merit in terms of retaining the provincial championship and then you go on and you have your 16 and your 16 in the Tommy Murphy.”

Jonathan Lyne and Paul Geaney are his only major injury concerns ahead of Sunday week.