Billy Joe Padden: Training ban is a non-starter

Billy Joe Padden says it is fanciful to believe a single county will be reprimanded for breaking the winter training ban.

It was agreed at Congress last February to penalise teams who returned to collective training during the closed season: Senior inter-county panels would forfeit their first home game in the national league, while U21 football panels would be prevented from playing challenge games until January 31.

Former Mayo and Armagh footballer Padden expects there are very few counties who observe the closed season and he insists that moving back the provincial pre-season competitions to the beginning of February is what is required to ensure players are afforded a proper break from training.

Under rule 6.43, Dublin and Kerry were prohibited from returning to collective training until December 29; while December 8 was set for defeated semi-finalists Mayo and Tyrone.

“No one is going to get punished for the fact they were getting out on the pitch to do a bit of extra training last month,” Padden remarked.

“So long as there are games on the first weekend of January you are going to have lads training in November and December. The people that are suffering for it are the players. They don’t want to be doing it, but they realise they have to if they want to play for their county.

“The fellas that are on the fringe know that these games are important for them on a personal level. That is why they will show up to a racetrack somewhere in November and run around it for two hours.

“If you are told that you are going to get a run in January then you are going to put in the training, because you don’t want to make a fool of yourself a couple of days into the new year.”

Padden continued: “It is very easy for a county board man in Dublin, Kerry, or Mayo to say there should be training bans this time of the year. They are not the ones trying to catch-up. If you are a new manager in charge of a Division 2 team, and you want to get up to Division 1, then you are going to do everything you can to bridge that gap.”

Connacht Council secretary John Prenty previously suggested scrapping the pre-league competitions to guarantee strict adherence to the closed season, but Padden does not agree.

“Do that and you are adding to the main problem at inter-county level, which is that there is too much training and not enough games.

“There will be lads that will probably play in 10 of the next 13 weekends and who will then enjoy a long break leading into the summer, when that is the time you should be playing football.

“Mayo played three or four championship games in 13 weekends last year. There were five-week breaks in between some of those games. There is a complete imbalance there.”