Andy Moran: 'GAA dismissing championship', GPA must take 'serious look at themselves'

The Leitrim boss saw his side lose to Sligo a week after their league finale.

Sun, 07 Apr, 2024 - 19:43

Maurice Brosnan

Andy Moran has accused the GAA of undermining the Gaelic football championship and called on the Gaelic Players Association to consider their position on the current fixture schedule.

Leitrim suffered a nine-point loss to Sligo in the Connacht SFC clash on Sunday, one week after they lost out in the Division 4 decider against Laois.

“I think the GAA are dismissing the championship if I am being honest with you,” said Moran post-match. “You come here today, did that feel like a championship game to anyone coming today? I don’t think it did. We were trying to scramble bodies together for the last while. They threw the U20s on top of it.

“For smaller counties it just makes it very tough. Yes, we tried our best to get everyone up and going today, but the evidence is in front of everyone’s face. I thought we played well for the first 20 minutes against the wind but after that it was very flat for our boys.”

Leitrim were not the only side to lose a week after playing in the league final. Westmeath were stunned by Wicklow 2-9 to 1-11. Moran also referenced Mayo’s defeat to Roscommon last year, one week after their Division 1 triumph.

“My own county last year. To be honest with you, we played Sligo in the last round of the league last year. I did the interviews with the boys and that is what I was giving out about. We had to get on a plane 10 days later to New York but Sligo had to go to a league final. If Sligo had lost that final for instance, they had to go to London on the back of a loss. That could have been a very risky game, but they won, the momentum carried them through and they beat London handily.

"It is just setting teams up for failure in supposedly our biggest competition which is championship. I just think the GPA have to have a serious look at themselves. The GAA put the fixtures, but the GPA have to say: 'I need to protect the players. We need to look after them.' Obviously, Tom (Parsons) is a good friend of mine but what they are doing to players at the minute is absolutely insane.”

Leitrim had a matchday squad of 22 on Sunday. Jack Foley and Barry McNulty were ruled out after playing for their U20s midweek. Mark Plunkett and Conor Quinn were withdraw from the 26 before throw-in. They now look towards a Tailteann Cup campaign.

“We have a 33-man panel,” said Moran. “We have two long-term injuries in Jordan Reynolds and Cillian McGloin. We had four U20s. That brings us down to 27 already. Mark and Conor were sick and concussed. That brings us to 25. Then we have three hamstrings, that is 22 players.

“The five weeks will help us a lot. It is not that we’ve an injury crisis but the U20s will very close to over. We will have them four back, we will add a fellas from the U20s squad and we will have our injured guys back.”