Cathal Cregg wants action on minors’ workload

Roscommon footballer Cathal Cregg has called for a blanket ban on inter-county players togging out at third level.

Cregg, the Connacht GAA strength and conditioning officer, described as “shocking” the report into minor activity which concluded last week that the current level of application by many players is “unsustainable”.

A survey carried out by the review group highlighted that over 50% of minors in 2014 trained at least once a day six times a week and Cregg, a Sigerson Cup medal winner, concedes the situation is far worse at U21 level.

“Inter-county players should not be playing in college GAA competitions because there is too much going on in the block between January and April. The training schedules of players at this time of the year is very heavy and that is resulting in injuries,” he told Saturday’s Games Development Conference.

“The player’s health and welfare must come first, must come ahead of scholarships. Your average Sigerson player is U21 and part of his county U21 and senior squads. He is expected to train for Sigerson, the U21 championship and national league. “Getting rid of inter-county players playing Sigerson alleviates the problem for the player because the coach doesn’t get it. They simply want a piece of the player. They want to win at all costs.

“I think the GAA have to take the bull by the horns. You can’t leave it up to the coach.”

Cregg believes elements of last week’s report did not stretch far enough in attempting to tackle burnout, proposing that minor players be made ineligible for adult competition at club level – the review group favoured such an approach solely at inter-county level.

“I don’t like the excuse ‘if they are good enough they are old enough’.

“That is generally the GAA thinking. A minor playing with his school and playing minor, U21 and senior for his club is more than likely doing more than he should be on a weekly basis. A 17-year old won’t be of the same physical fitness as a club senior so he is going to find those senior sessions very tough.

“Schools players should not be playing with the county team of their age until the schools competition is finished. If a schools team is going well then an inter-county manager needs to have the common sense to trust in the schools manager to train his players as opposed to burdening these young players and making them train with several different teams.

The Western Gaels clubman has been a central figure in the nationwide roll-out of the Smartabase system which is being employed by the GAA to gather online data from underage development squads in a bid to establish a player welfare database.

“Muscle-type injuries shouldn’t be happening if we are training our players properly. The 2007 report showed that the figure for muscle-type injuries in Gaelic Games (42%) was way ahead of any other type of sport.

“This is all stemming from training at least once a day six days a week with no proper rest or recovery.We have to train players hard enough so that they get fit, but not so hard that they are getting injured all the time.

“This data is very useful for a player’s long term development. When a player joins a development squad at 14 we carry out basic screens and fitness testing. We tailor their program accordingly. When this player reaches minor his manager can see how he has been progressing and what sort of training he has been doing over the past four years.

“We have been using this system for the last 18 months, but the first 12 months was just getting used to it – the fitness testing and movement screening data. The last six months have been getting the questionnaires up and running, getting managers and players comfortable using this app. I hope to be back here in a year and be able to tell people exactly what an U16, minor and U21 player should be doing.”

Added GAA Director of Games Pat Daly: “We would hope that all codes have access to this system. On foot of this presentation we will try to get it out to clubs as quick as possible.”