July earliest return, says Whelan

Galway vice-captain Conor Whelan doesn’t expect the return of inter-county action until July at the earliest.

Whelan also supports the idea of the Championship running in autumn if required.

“You would hope that, when all this is over, the GAA can play a big role in trying to lift the spirits of the country, and try to bring a bit of a buzz back,” says the 2017 All-Star.

“In saying that, players have to be given a chance to collectively train and try to get up to a certain level. That’s definitely going to take a couple of weeks [from when restrictions are eased].

“I don’t think it would be fair if in the morning they turn around and say ‘look, we’re going back in two weeks’.

“It’s not the same to be training on your own as it is training as a group. It’s very difficult to tell, but I think it will definitely be July or August by the time that things do get up and running, if they do.”

Like Cork football manager Ronan McCarthy, Whelan sees a lead-in time of four weeks being appropriate. In the event that the cessation continues into the summer, the Kinvara man has no issue with an autumn Championship.

“Well, if you look at the history of the GAA, they’ve never not played Championship, so I suppose that’s probably the biggest thing that we’re holding on to, that the GAA have always played a Championship so whether that is played in July or August or whether it’s played in the back end of the year. I do think the Championship is going to be played.

“I can see it being feasible playing it later on in the year. Obviously you’d have an issue with club championships then, and different things like that. But we do have a lot of floodlit venues around the country, while Croke Park could take games year round.”

Any form of Championship would work for the 23-year-old right now.

“We all just want to play games. We are very understanding that this is a crisis that is a lot more important than sport. But when sport does come back at some stage, we’re just going to be going out and playing games.

“Whether that’s a straight knockout format, the old round-robin format, or whether it’s the older provincial format, we don’t really mind too much.

“We’re all just eager to get back playing. It’s probably taken a bit for granted when you’re playing but definitely being away from it the last few weeks you definitely do miss it. You definitely miss the buzz of heading out training with the boys and developing throughout the season.”

Whelan’s homeplace, Kinvara, was one of the first places in the country to confirm a case of Covid-19. Their openness about it, and the way they went about addressing it by invoking social distancing protocols and precautions earlier than most made him proud.

“They were all from the same family who were out skiing abroad, came in contact with a family from Germany skiing. It was posted online that there were five positive cases in Kinvara and this was at the early stages of the virus.

“It was important that it was made known that there were positive cases in the area to try and get the message across to stop coming out of the house and try to enact social distancing at a time when it wasn’t really happening.

“They closed the GAA pitch very early on before other places did, and they were very proactive to try and stop the spread of the virus. Thankfully, there haven’t been any cases in the area since.”

Conor Whelan is an ambassador for Patrick Bourke Menswear.

The “Kings of the Game” spring collection is available now from www.patrickbourkemenswear.ie.

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