Jeff Lynskey: GAA 'needs to take action' on early year fixture log-jam
LOG-JAM: University of Galway hurling manager, Jeff Lynskey. Pic: David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile
University of Galway boss Jeff Lynskey says the GAA 'needs to take action' over the January and February fixture pileup - but reckons they won't.
Lynskey, who guided Galway to three All-Ireland minor titles in a row before taking over the U-20s, steered the university formerly known as NUI Galway to last season's Electric Ireland Fitzgibbon Cup final.
He said that for some of his inter-county players, they played 'up around 16 or 17 games for the two months in January and February'.
With the third level championships, inter-county pre-season competitions and National Leagues - as well as the concluding stages of the All-Ireland club series - all scheduled to take place in January, it could be a chaotic few weeks again for a cohort of players.
Lynskey said 'you don't have to be a genius to work out that the schedule needs to be looked at' though he isn't confident that this will happen.
"The question is, who is going to deal with it?" he said at the draws for the Electric Ireland third level championships. "I have been asked this question a lot over the last five or six years. Unless you have an understanding county manager like Henry Shefflin or John Kiely, you're going to run into trouble with these lads.
"In fairness to John Kiely, last year he looked for a schedule for Cian (who played for Lynskey's NUI Galway) and he was just let off with the Fitzgibbon. But John is in the enviable position of having won All-Irelands, he's not under pressure. Every other county manager is under pressure for results straight off."
Lynskey said the reality for the better players who are wanted by various managers is that 'they will have a game every week for I don't know how long'.
"As I said to you, someone needs to take action but it's not going to be dealt with," he claimed. "I was on committees in the past with this - either you play without county players completely or else you free them up for six weeks and just let them focus on college. But (at the moment) they all want a piece of them."
Removing inter-county players from the third level championships entirely could create alternative problems.
"Look, you would have an issue with sponsors then and the profile of the competition if you do something like that," explained Lynskey, who suggested an alternative model.
"Do you create an environment whereby the colleges is developmental for the lads who have not played senior (inter-county) the previous year? That would help other lads make the breakthrough. That would be logical but our association sometimes doesn't do logical, that is the other side of it."
Lynskey said his life is made a little easier by a strong working relationship with Galway senior manager Shefflin.
"You'd have a conversation maybe Monday or Tuesday, as regards what the plan is for the week," he explained.
"The (Galway) lads don't train with us, they attend meetings or they're on Zoom with us once a week and then they play the games. We're probably fortunate in Galway that the lads know eachother well anyhow, from senior squads and underage squads so we're okay with that. The challenge for us is integrating other lads within the setup. But yeah, there's an open conversation and dialogue there with Henry especially in terms of the scheduling for the lads."
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