James Horan: ‘I would be cursing whoever got rid of pre-season competitions this year’

GAA delegates recently decided to scrap all pre-season competitions on a one-season trial basis.

James Horan addresses the Football Review Committee Media Briefing at Croke Park on Thursday. Pic: INPHO/Bryan Keane

Football Review Committee member and former Mayo manager James Horan has hit out at the decision to get rid of pre-season competitions for the 2025 season.

Last month, delegates decided to scrap all pre-season competitions on a one-season trial basis. There will then be a review to see if their removal should be made permanent.

Speaking at a press briefing ahead of next week’s interprovincial games in Croke Park, Horan said it was the wrong time for such a move with new rules on the horizon. Horan, who managed Mayo twice from 2011-2014 and 2019-2021, was asked if current intercounty managers would be cursing the committee charged with enhancing Gaelic football.

“I would be cursing whoever got rid of the pre-season competitions this year,” he said.

“That is who I'd be cursing this year. Because we were talking to John Cleary on Monday. So, he can't start training until December 7th. He can't have any challenges. He has no pre-season competition. He'll have all his college guys gone in January, and then in December, after the club season, you'll have a lot of guys that have gone on holidays.

“He is going to get a couple of sessions, I'd say, of all his team playing before the national league. So, that's awful tough on an inter-county manager. If I was an inter county manager, I'd definitely be giving out to someone about something. It is too short. I think the FBD would be perfect for it this year, of all years.” 

Cork boss John Cleary told the Irish Examiner Gaelic football podcast this week that the preseason competitions shouldn’t have been abandoned this year: “We are organising challenges games now, we have one or two in the pipeline, I’d have preferred the McGrath Cup. It is a structured competition. There is a bit of media, referee, linesmen and umpires. It is probably not the same in a challenge game.” The FRC have met 35 times and received over 7,300 survey responses from the public. On the process, Horan stressed that change is required for the sake of the sport.

“I was at the Mayo-Leitrim U-17 game last year in Castlebar. Leitrim had some brilliant players but as soon as the ball was thrown up, all the Leitrim players were all back in their own half for the game. It was horrendous.

“I think when you have that at underage, when they come through that is the only way they'll know how to play. When you have coaches doing that down there, I think we're in for another decade of fairly boring stuff if we don't do something significant.

“You will eventually have players that won't want to play as it won’t be exciting enough, and they will play FIFA or something. Then you'll have people that won't go to them. You could very quickly see the inter-county game drop, the quality and general appeal.”