Caught between rock, hard place, and a physio’s couch
Meath and Cavan; Sligo and Fermanagh; Derry and Offaly; and Monaghan v Kerry were all postponed after a heavy fall of snow made pitches and grounds unsafe for players and supporters alike.
While postponements of games are hugely frustrating for everybody involved, the later they are left go before a final decision is made, the harder they are to stomach.
Take Offaly’s trip up to Derry for their 2pm throw-in on Sunday, for instance. The game was called off just 90 minutes before the scheduled start time with the teams already at the ground. From the pictures, the pitch was clearly unplayable and was never going to be fit for a game that day, and as the new Offaly manager Stephen Wallace remarked at the time “that is fit for nothing only making snowmen”.
Surely with the whole country under yet another weather warning for snow and freezing temperatures at the weekend, the referee or somebody could have been in a position to make a decision earlier than 90 minutes before the scheduled throw-in in the interest of fairness to players and supporters? Or if at all possible, an alternative venue should have been on standby as a back-up.
With the front-loading of our fixture calendar, it shouldn’t be unreasonable to expect some sort of standardised protocol in place whereby if a game is in doubt because of weather or the playing surface, a final decision is made no later than four hours before the scheduled start time to give everybody a bit of fair play.
Ultimately, the playing conditions and safety of the players should supersede all other considerations and while it is hugely inconvenient, expensive, and infuriating for supporters to travel around the country only for a game to be called off at the eleventh hour, there isn’t much can be done to soften the blow outside of getting ample notice.
Of course, with this blast of bad weather and spate of postponements, the GAA now finds itself in a real bind. With those rescheduled National League games rescheduled for next Sunday afternoon, the potential is there for a small group of players to play in the Sigerson Cup semi-finals tomorrow, with the third level final fixed for Saturday afternoon. That could be three games in five days.
Fair enough, counties have the choice to rest those players most affected, but you’re talking about the likes of Kerry’s current midfield pairing of Jack Barry and Barry O’Sullivan as well as corner-back Ronan Shanahan.
Mayo’s Conor Loftus, Tipperary’s Bill Maher, and Galway powerhouse Damien Comer are among plenty of others who played last Sunday, and will face a similar prospect of playing three games in a week also if they are to reach the Sigerson final with the college.
Given the recent harsh lessons Kerry learned about overloading guys at this time of year, with the likes of David Clifford, Sean O’Shea and Gavin Crowley all breaking down following the hectic early season schedule, you’d imagine they’ll be wiser for the experience if the situation presents itself again next weekend.
While Sigerson football continues to be allowed weave itself between the early rounds of the national league, some of our youngest and most talented players are feeling the burden more than most. This time of year presents a particularly heavy workload on soft pitches when guys aren’t quite at their physical peak.
Injuries sustained in the last month by those in that group were contributed to by insufficient rest and recovery between the tangle of midweek college games and weekend county fixtures.
I heard an interview with Kerry’s David Moran recently where he was asked about the increasing professionalism of the GAA. His response went something along the lines of ‘the GAA isn’t getting more professional at all — far from it — it’s actually becoming even more amateur’. He reasoned that even though the training schedule has increased dramatically in recent years, they’re still getting up and going to work or college the next morning and getting even less rest and recovery.
Any professional sportsperson will tell you that the big difference between the pro and amateur, outside of the pay packet, is the fact that you have adequate rest time to allow your body to recuperate after and before the next bout of hard training or game.
In the GAA, we seem to pay only lip service to player welfare, especially in this period where we have a huge volume of games going on, the players are treated more as amateurs than ever before, especially those double jobbing with their third level institutions.
With the resignation of Dermot Earley as chief executive of the GPA roughly coinciding with the impending departure of the GAA’s director general, there is going to be an opportunity to affect change.
That fundamental shift must centre on treating our players more professionally, and I’m not talking about paying anybody a single cent.
The players need the next GPA chief to lead the organisation to a place where they fight vehemently for their players best interests. They need an agitator. I don’t blame any county manager or Sigerson team boss for trying to get their pound of flesh out of their most talented players. That’s the nature of their gig. The third level colleges are providing the player with scholarships to cover education and the county manager couldn’t give a fiddlers about the competition or the college. They want to see if the player can cut it at inter-county level and the more opportunities they get, the better picture they will have.
The player is caught in the middle. His choice; let the college down or piss off the county manager and maybe lose his chance. Hobson’s Choice.
Take Brian Howard. He didn’t even play for DIT in the Sigerson quarter-final to ensure he would be fit to take his opportunity with Dublin the following weekend. Talk about a rock and a hard place.
But it’s a situation in my view that should be taken out of the players hands. The GPA must look at making it a priority to stop this craziness. They need to protect their members first and foremost: that is the function of any representative organisation and I believe they are failing to do so in this instance.
Is it a quick fix? Of course not. But the new man in the hot-seat needs to make it a priority. They need to be more assertive and less agreeable with Croke Park on issues pertaining to the unreasonable demands placed on members, particularly from January to March.
It must become a part of a wider strategy for bringing about positive change, fixtures are obviously the significant part of that, but the window of opportunity will soon open and the GPA and their new leadership must take a firm grip. If their basic function isn’t to protect their most vulnerable members at a time when they are getting pummelled, it needs to be.
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