Peter Canavan: Keeping minor at U17 will lead to players leaving GAA to play soccer and rugby 

DECISION TIME: Darragh and Ruairi Canavan of Errigan Ciaran with their father Peter and niece Ava Harte after the Tyrone County Senior Club Football Championship Final match between Errigan Ciaran and Carrickmore at O'Neills Healy Park in Omagh, Tyrone. Photo by Oliver McVeigh/Sportsfile

Tyrone great Peter Canavan has warned that keeping the minor age grade at U17 will result in players leaving the GAA to go off playing soccer and rugby.

Canavan’s Errigal Ciaran club has drafted a motion to be heard at Tyrone’s county convention proposing the return of minor to U18 at club level but without decoupling. The decoupling cut off, they argue, should be U17, not U18.

Errigal Ciaran have emailed their proposal to clubs all over the country and are hopeful it will feature at several county conventions in the weeks ahead. One Cork club yesterday confirmed they have submitted the Errigal Ciaran motion to be heard at next month’s Cork convention but have not yet received confirmation from Páirc Uí Chaoimh that the motion has made it onto the clár.

None of the recommendations circulated by the Croke Park age grade task force in mid-September allowed for minor at U18 without decoupling.

In their email to clubs, Errigal Ciaran said there remains “a major gulf between the view of many clubs and the view of the task force in respect of the issue of decoupling”.

The Tyrone club argue that “decoupling is too blunt an instrument and will lead to many unintended consequences for player development at that critical age”. 

They do also acknowledge that minor at U18 without decoupling will give rise to issues in terms of fixture co-ordination, particularly in dual counties, and so these counties may require some flexibility in terms of bye laws.

The bottom line as they see it, though, is that the pros far outweigh the cons. Certainly in the eyes of Errigal Ciaran vice-chairman Peter Canavan, it would be unwise to leave minor at U17 or to return it to U18 with decoupling.

“I am involved with my own club, I am involved with Holy Trinity College, I am speaking to coaches every day of the week, and I have yet to come across a coach who has suggested that just having U17 and U19 at club level is the way forward and is a great idea,” Canavan began.

“While well-intentioned, it is clearly not working on the ground. Maybe clubs haven’t been that vocal in coming out against it up to now, but if it was put to coaches in every club, I know what the answer will be.” 

With U19 club competitions across the country having failed to catch on this year, Canavan said a return to U18 is imperative as players coming out of the current U17 minor grade have no meaningful games outlet the following year.

“U19 is considered a joke in many counties. It is so unfair for those lads who are currently in that age bracket. How do you tell them they can’t play the game they love, that they are going to have to go and do something else.

“Look at the high percentage that is going to get no football at all once they are finished at U17 (if the status quo remains). What will that result in? It will possibly result in them leaving their club to go play soccer or rugby. It is such a bizarre stand to take, to run the risk of depriving so many youngsters of Gaelic games.

“Decoupling at U17 makes sense, but certainly for an 18-year-old, and the level of S&C that these lads are getting from 14 up, decoupling shouldn’t be the case at U18. Especially in smaller clubs, they are going to be needed for adult games.

“The split season should make U18 without decoupling more straightforward and easier for the fixture planners.” The two-time All-Ireland winner and six-time All-Star is equally strong on the inter-county age grades reverting back to U18 and U21.

“It would be such a retrograde step to have one inter-county age grade at U19, which is what they are proposing (17 would be developmental).

“You are depriving lads the opportunity to play for their county at what was U18 and U21, which is now U17 and U20, and which will become U19 only if Croke Park gets their way.

“If you look at the amount of young lads who have represented their county at minor and at U20/21, that’s the last chance a lot of them ever got to wear a county jersey, and it is memories they cherish. We are depriving our youngsters in every county that opportunity. It is surreal that you would want to do that to your own Gaels, to your own membership.”