Inter-county duty leaves young players ‘overwhelmed’

Players chief Dessie Farrell has described a fatigued Dublin U21 player’s recent admission that he felt ‘shit’ before a major game as an illustration of the strains upon top student stars.

The Gaelic Players Association head yesterday presided over the launch of ‘Never Enough Time’, a report on the experiences of student inter-county players.

The 16-page document states that 45% train five or more times a week while half of the group are ‘overwhelmed’ by their commitments.

Worryingly, the same amount conceded that their academic performance and indeed attendance are affected by GAA commitments.

Farrell doubles as Dublin U21 football manager and suggested the demands on players are best summed up by the student who confided that he was jaded ahead of last weekend’s All-Ireland semi-final defeat to Tipperary.

“There was one player who came up and said, ‘I feel shit’,” revealed Farrell. “So I said, ‘what’s wrong with you?’ He said, ‘we have exams on at the minute, I have been up late studying and I’ve just no energy’. So you are happy to let him go in and rest and whatever when you hear that. He had the wherewithal to come and say it. But how many feel like that on a regular basis and don’t actually flag it with you?”

The report was authored by Waterford Institute of Technology’s Aoife Lane, head of the Women’s Gaelic Players Association, and contains various proposals for change.

These include starting the Allianz Leagues later and giving students a clear ‘window’ to play third-level competitions only, lowering the U21 age grade to U20 and removing college teams from inter-county competitions.

Farrell is confident of gaining the approval of GAA director general Paraic Duffy and president Aogan Ó Fearghail.

“They saw draft copies of the report,” said Farrell. “I think probably, and through no-one’s fault, there has been some inertia around this issue for a long while. At a particular point in the calendar, over a two-month period, everybody’s up in arms but then it moves on and comes back 10 months later. It’s definitely something that we feel, once and for all, now that we have the evidence, to go and tackle it properly rather than get the hearsay and anecdotal stuff.

“We’re now best placed to go and address some of these issues. We’re engaging with the GAA on the potential to set up a work group that would look at this, like the minor review work group who made very useful recommendations and changes there recently. We think that’s an option but at whatever level it happens, we still have to figure this out but getting the Director General and President on board, which they seem to be, and trying to capitalise on the goodwill there to make some significant changes and make progress in this area is going to be important.”

Other concerning findings in the report are that 56% would ‘like more time to devote to their studies’, 55% are experiencing ‘financial difficulty’ while 14% have had to repeat an academic year.

Farrell said that while the broader proposals contained in the report are important, basic planning could also alleviate some of the problems for student players. “There are crazy situations where fellas are being asked to travel to a gym during the week to complete their gym programmes,” he said. “You can do a gym programme anywhere. There is some really basic stuff like that which needs to be tackled head on.”

Reducing the amount of fixtures for young players in the busy spring period has long since been a problem for GAA administrators. Many have suggested that playing the Sigerson and Fitzgibbon Cup competitions before Christmas would help.

“Originally, I would have thought that was a solution to the whole thing,” said Farrell. “But if you condense it all, it’s all over and done with in a period of time, the colleges would like more longevity around their own Gaelic games programme. That said, there is going to have to be compromises on everyone’s behalf if you are to come up with a viable solution. I think the window for the college competitions should be from the third week of January to the middle of February, you play your college competitions on a league basis, four teams in each, teams go through to the semi-final and final and you could have it done and dusted in four or five weeks.”

Aside from starting the Allianz leagues later, Farrell said getting rid of semi-finals and finals is a consideration too. He said that it is important someone acts to help the overburdened younger players who are at risk of burnout.