Kerry GAA will not support motion to introduce club game requirement for inter-county players

Kerry GAA chairman Patrick O'Sullivan defended the decision to reuse match programmes originally intended for the postponed Kerry v Donegal league game for the rescheduled fixture. 

Kerry GAA secretary Peter Twiss said the motion from Dublin club Clontarf would not be workable. Pic: Diarmuid Greene/Sportsfile

A motion compelling a player to have played four competitive league games for his club in his previous year in order to be eligible for an inter-county team will not be supported by Kerry following discussion at this month’s county board meeting on Tuesday Night. The motion, proposed by Dublin club Clontarf, will be debated at this weekend's GAA Congress in Donegal. 

Kerry Secretary Peter Twiss said it would be unworkable because of the nature and structure of competitions in the Kingdom, with the county league only starting on March 16th and by that stage, Kerry would have five or six league games played.

Mr Twiss said that it would mean a major change in the split season to facilitate it. When asked by John Mitchels club delegate Pat McAuliffe if Kerry would be supporting it, Mr Twiss said “I don’t think it would be feasible. We don’t know how it works in Kerry or any county. But it is a radical proposal and let’s see how it gets on.” 

There will be opposition in Kerry to Motion 4 which is to do with membership. Currently there are three memberships, full, youth (U10-18) and child (U9). The proposal from Killyclogher redefines membership with a fourth tier - full members, youth members over 16 with a vote, youth members from 12 to 16 who won't have a vote, and child membership redefined as U12.

In Kerry currently it is over nine that a player becomes involved with his club, although they maybe training with their school friends from six years of age and younger at a club. But that club may not be in line with the Parish Rule in Kerry so it has caused difficulties in the past. Kerry favour leaving child membership at under-nine and then they will have to join a club at 10 which is in line with where they live with the Parish Rule in mind.

Kerry clubs do not appear to have objections to the Danesfort motion about clubs' ancillary facilities being used by organisations in the community. They are likely to vote in favour. 

Kerry are also unlikely to support the Rosslare motion which proposes to make it mandatory for all clubs to field hurling teams from U-7 up to U-10. The lack of support is on the basis that it is not the proper way to promote hurling.

Chairman Patrick O’Sullivan addressed the criticism that supporters expressed at a two-week old programme being used for the Kerry v Donegal game in Killarney that had been postponed two weeks previously. 

Mr O’Sullivan said that the decision not to print new programmes was made for a number of reasons.

“It would have meant disposing of thousands of programmes with nothing inaccurate except the team lineouts," he said.

"Even a new programme would not have teams 100% accurate as there would be lots of changes to line-ups like Kerry v Dublin on Saturday night. 

"The ideally of manually inserting a team in the program would have to be done on the Saturday evening, and would be slow and again accuracy not guaranteed. The postponement of a league game is quite unusual and the gap meant quite a few changes in personnel on both teams. So while it was regrettable it was unavoidable."

Austin Stacks nominated goalkeeper Michael Tansley as the Kerry U20 football captain and that was also ratified at the meeting.