Ger Lane: August Bank Holiday All-Ireland is ‘ambitious’

Cork chairman Ger Lane shares the Club Players Association’s concerns the balance of power has tilted too much towards the inter-county scene. However, he has described their support for All-Ireland finals to be played on the August Bank Holiday as “a bit ambitious”.

Cork are yet to finalise their position on GAA director general Páraic Duffy’s football championship proposals, which will be voted on at Congress in Croke Park next month. However, Lane spoke at October’s monthly meeting about the problem with the document proposing to move the All-Ireland hurling final to August.

Lane feels CPA secretary Declan Brennan’s idea to play the finals by the August Bank Holiday “at least” would deprive the GAA of premium market share.

Cork also don’t appear to see eye-to-eye with the CPA on the calendar year season proposal put forward by Duffy.

“We don’t disagree with the Club Players Association in what they are trying to achieve, but it’s difficult for Cork with so many dual players and clubs to complete our fixtures in the calendar year. If we are bringing the championships forward it will mean we play very few club championship games early in the year and we could be playing a lot of them after the All-Ireland finals.

“We see the difficulty in implementing a calendar year but at the same time we are conscious of trying to accommodate club players as well. They are talking about playing the All-Irelands finals as early as the first August weekend. Do you then give away the rest of August and September in terms of the marketing and promotion of the game at national level?

“There’s no doubt the inter-county scene is a shop window and we have to be conscious of that. Croke Park have always defended that in the past although their position seems to have changed in recent times with Páraic’s proposals. He wants to bring them forward but bringing them to the August Bank Holiday weekend is a bit ambitious. We would be open to change if it was for the betterment of the association.”

Lane is, however, in agreement with the CPA that club players’ lot has to improve although he stresses there are parameters to be work within in a dual county such as Cork.

“Everybody acknowledges the balance of power has shifted towards the inter-county scene over the last number of years with so many backdoors and so forth, and I think club players have felt a bit disenfranchised as a result waiting for championships and so on and so forth to finish. The club players are definitely deserving of a better programme and it’s something we would have to be supportive and welcome of. How that can be achieved might be difficult but the club is the cornerstone of the association and we certainly can’t have club players feeling sidelined.

“While a lot of lip service has been paid to them over the years to be fair to the association and Croke Park they have been very mindful of that, and I think Páraic Duffy and the president are very supportive of trying to help out the club player and are certainly trying to bring in initiatives to try and bring that about.”

Lane insists it hasn’t been without effort that Cork have attempted to give club players a reliable fixtures format. “From Cork’s point of view, we’ve always tried to get the balance right, and we’ve always tried to play our championship matches intertwined with the inter-county scene and have usually given a couple of weeks to the county managers. But, look, it has been very difficult because as a dual county we have a lot of dual clubs and dual players.”

Monaghan’s Conor McManus says clubs simply need more playing time.

“Everything can be brought forward, that’s the ideal solution,” says McManus.

“It just means in a lot of counties you are playing week-in, week-out, clubs are starting to train in January across the country.

“And your whole club season could maybe be defined in two or three weeks when you could pick up an injury here and there and it could cost you a championship, or whatever the case is, whereas if there was a wee bit more time, things can be spread out for the club and county.”

Meanwhile, Lane said Cork hope to stage a soft launch of the redeveloped Páirc Uí Chaoimh in June with a club double-header.

“The fixture would work as a dry run the week before the Munster SFC final on July 4, which Cork are aiming to host at the stadium on July 2.

“Obviously, we would like to have a club game or something to that effect to run through and make sure everything is working perfectly in advance.

“It’s a little bit down the road so we haven’t gone too much into it.”