Rule scuppers Billy Nolan’s Waterford dream

Exciting under-age goalkeeper Billy Nolan, an U21 hurler this past season, will not be to play for the Waterford side next year because of a new GAA rule set to come into operation on January 1.

At the age of 16, prodigy Nolan lined out between the sticks for the U21s’ Munster championship quarter-final win over Cork in June but was injured for the semi-final defeat to Clare the following month.

He has since turned 17 but from next month all U21 players at inter-county level must be over 18 years and under 21.

The Roanmore teenager has been in sensational form both club and county in recent times. In 2014, he won a local monthly award in Waterford for his performance against Clare in which he made a string of spectacular stops. Losing to Limerick in this year’s Munster minor play-off, he made four point-blank saves.

The motion, recommended by the rules advisory and minor review committee, to change the minimum age grades at U21 and adult level in club and county were passed at last February’s Congress.

At club level, players over 16 and U21 are eligible for U21. Only over 18s will be permitted to line out at adult inter-county level; for clubs a player must be over 17 to play adult.

A number of players will face similar predicaments to Nolan next year. Already, a number of board officials have questioned their repercussions such as the impact on rural clubs.

Limerick chairman Oliver Mann fears the introduction of the rule prohibiting U17s from lining out at adult club level could cause difficulties for divisional competitions. “Will we see more clubs looking to field combined teams and perhaps others reducing the number of adult teams they field?”

Former Kerry star Pat Spillane recently condemned the same rule, reasoning it will negatively affect rural outfits: “An U16 not being able to play senior football – that to many little, small rural clubs means they’re unable to field a team because sometimes you have to put an U16 on the senior team.

The rule which limited girls playing with boys up to a certain age was a death knell for a lot of little juvenile rural clubs because it meant when your four or five girls were gone after U12 or U14 or U16 you lost them and then it meant you were amalgamating. Rule changes, which probably came in for healthy and safety grounds, are sometimes counter productive and destroying little rural clubs.”