'Some poor hoor is going to get battered': Prenty can't fathom idea of International Rules Series return 

2017: Kevin Feely of Ireland wins the ball from teammate Niall Grimley, and Nat Fyfe and Rory Laird of Australia. Pic: Ray McManus/Sportsfile

Connacht GAA chief executive John Prenty cannot fathom how Croke Park will entertain a return of the International Rules Series and players “getting battered by a crowd of professionals”, while at the same time citing player welfare concerns in shelving pre-season competitions.

At Friday’s Connacht Championship launch in Bekan, Prenty said counties bought a “dummy” from the Gaelic Players Association last winter in agreeing to abandon pre-season competitions for 2025.

To remove January competitions from the GAA calendar but then enter talks with the AFL about reviving the International Rules Series, as took place in Dublin this week, is a circle Prenty cannot square. The Series has been dormant since its most recent outing in 2017.

“It makes no difference (where the International Rules is staged), some poor hoor is going to get battered no matter when,” Prenty began.

“How player welfare can be a problem in the FBD League, which is a pre-season competition for younger fellas to get an opportunity to play; and you get your best players in the middle of the club championship getting battered by a crowd of professionals from Australia… I just find it hard to square that circle.” 

Prenty’s €3.1m Connacht Air Dome, destroyed by Storm Éowyn in January, could be resurrected as quickly as this October, with the Connacht chief expressing his desire that it would once again play home to inter-county pre-season fare after Christmas.

The cost of the dome rebuild he put at €4m. It’s a cost he wants the Government to contribute to.

“Both the president and the Ard Stiurthóir say that it will be built, but I think the Government have a responsibility to the west of Ireland as well, so we’ll be dealing with them.

“The pitch had some damage done to it, but that has been repaired. The engineers have got to come in and inspect the ground works, but the initial feeling is that everything else is perfect.

“We’re almost ready in the next couple of days to order the canvas to be manufactured. That will take between five and seven months. We’d be confident that we’d be back up and running – depending on weather again later on in the year – but by the end of September, early October.” 

With Mayo and Roscommon opening their Connacht championship campaigns next weekend, seven days after their respective League final appearances, Prenty is of the view that League finals are unnecessary in the current calendar. 

But in the search for greater breathing space between the two competitions, he said club fixtures will be squashed if the inter-county season runs later than the first weekend of August.

“For major dual counties, the space isn't in the year. There is only 52 weeks, unless we change the year to around 55 weeks.” 

Mayo coach Stephen Rochford, meanwhile, believes the brainstrust is there in Croke Park to deliver the much-called-for gap between League and championship. Unlike his fellow Mayo man, he’s in favour of retaining League deciders.

“I think it is quite unfortunate that we are putting them one week apart. I do believe with the brainstrust that is in Croke Park that there is scope to at least create a minimum of two weeks somewhere, be that push the All-Ireland back by a week or start the League one week earlier. But there is scope there to create the gap.

“I would say this, I wouldn’t like them to take away the National League final weekend. The game we are playing at the moment, to showcase that again in a national final opportunity, we shouldn’t take that away.” 

Rochford confirmed both Paddy Durcan and Tommy Conroy have returned to training and did not close the door on the possibility of either making their first appearance of 2025 against Sligo in Sunday week’s Connacht quarter-final.