The Summer is Long - Let's Share it Around

[Lone Shark]

(the next in my intermittent flow of columns! All comments welcome!)

A mother’s love. Home made brown bread. Eighty three relatives coming round for Christmas dinner. The craic at the Galway races. There are always things in this world that are considered utterly wholesome, and are beyond question with regard to their status as inherently “good”. Let no voice question their “goodness”! The GAA is no different in that regard, in that there are plenty of sacred cows that are just taken as read. When have you heard the argument against good early ball into the full forward line, or the argument against first time ground hurling? Rightly or wrongly, there will always be things that will be seen as above debate.

One such mantra that we’ve all heard, and indeed repeated variants of ourselves, is that the club is the bedrock of the GAA. The club player is the heart and soul of the organisation, and he/she should never be forgotten. Indeed it’s considered so inherently obvious, that you regularly hear statements to this very effect, usually while said club player is beging blithely ignored and derided by those in power. The club player may be considered the heart and soul of the organisation, but all through the summer months, the months which are supposed to be the main time for GAA activity, the heart is ignored while all the attention and focus is put on what can only be called the highlighted hair of the organisation – intercounty players. Throughout July and August, county championships around the country are run off in dribs and drabs, with a round of games fitted in wherever possible depending on when the county players and management make themselves available.

Let’s not cod ourselves – with the system in place as it is, this is the way the clubs would like to have it – the clubmen of Rhode might grumble about playing one championship match every six weeks during the summer months, but if the alternative was to take the field without Niall Mac, Shane Sullivan, Paschal Kelleghan and the rest, then all of a sudden it wouldn’t be seen as such a bugbear. But the annoying thing is that the situation is unnecessary. The intercounty season has become an all consuming monolith, with all other facets of the organisation deemed subservient to its whims. We accept it, we don’t question it, in many cases because of more supposedly “good” things that are beyond question – the All Ireland season shall culminate on the second and fourth Sundays in September. The Munster Hurling final is the last Sunday in June. Teams should always get a two week break or more. These are traditions that keep our games in the dark ages, and while they may have made sense in the time of the truly amateur player, it’s time we threw off these shackles and gave the club player their fair share.

The truth is that the intercounty player currently has priority throughout the summer – well surely there is room to give August and September back to the clubman. Let the county players have their time, but designate a specific time to the club player too, and not just October. The key aspects to how this system would work are as follows:

(1) This season the All Ireland football championship began on the 8th of May, featuring Offaly and Louth. Now if we’re willing to start the championship then, surely six weeks is enough to run off most provincial championships? This means that with the backdoor running concurrently, as it does now, we could be at the All Ireland quarter final stage easily by the second weekend in July. Have the All Ireland semis on the last weekend in July and first weekend of August, and the All Ireland final on the third week in August.
(2) Similarly with the hurling – have the provinces played off by the beginning of June, since 5 weeks should cover both either provincial championship, backdoor round robin games played in June, quarter finals on the first and second weekends in July, semis on the third weekend, and the final on the second week in August.
(3) Rather than the current system, whereby club championships are fitted into one week slots here and there throughout the summer, instead counties gear their club championships to start in late July/early August, depending on their expectancies of success. This still gives a minimum of two months, probably three, to have their games finished in time for the start of the All Ireland club series. It also means that club players can aim to peak for a certain time of year, rather than having to be at their best throughout the whole summer.
(4) Club leagues could be run off while the intercounty championship is ongoing. That way club players are getting to play most of their games in the height of summer, when football and hurling were designed to be played.
(5) As things stand Club games have to be played at inconvenient times so as not to clash with live TV games. Even then, attendances do suffer because a good alternative to going to the live game is in place, at least for neutrals. By putting the Offaly senior football quarter finals on at peak times on a sunday afternoon, when there is no intercounty alternative, attendances and interest will be greatly increased.

The benefits to this are manifold. It would bring an end to the farce that currently exists, where club players return to training in November and December, and are even being watched by eagle eyed locals as to their alcohol consumption around Christmas. Instead clubs can resume training in February, safe in the knowledge that if they are still doing physical work in May, there will be no real consequence. As an aside, training costs etc will also be greatly reduced as a result.

Supporters who have been won over by a good championship summer for their county will have club action to get into straight away, and thus the chances of the fair weather fan converting into a true GAA follower are greatly increased. As things stand when his/her team gets knocked out of the intercounty, chances are their club is gone as well. Under the new system clubs could be in a better position to reap the benefit of a good summer for the county.

There would be real continuity to competitions, and genuine momentum would be built up within counties, rather than teams having a big win and then disappearing for three weeks with the spotlight removed. Finally, the long delay between All Ireland semi and final would be eliminated, which could only be of benefit to the participating sides. A player preparing for an All Ireland is under immense pressure, and an extra week or two of media focus, hassle for tickets, and general celebrity does nobody any good. Two weeks in the run up to such a game is more than enough. Compare the mood in Kerry and Mayo in the run up to last years All Ireland football final. Clearly the hype surrounding the event in Mayo was going to take its toll – a clear advantage to Kerry, a county that would never feel the need to get worked up about an impending final.

Needless to say there are questions that need answering – but the answers are there if people are willing to look for them:

(1) “This would require counties to play weekends in succession quite often – this is unfair” – Complete nonsense. How often have you heard of intercounty players playing for their county only to go back and play for UCD or another Dublin club on the same day? It’d be the same for everyone, and the players would be more than fit enough. As it is county teams invariably end up playing a challenge match on a week they’re not playing anyway. This year the NFL played five weeks in succession – nobody complained when it was the same for everyone.
(2) “What about replays – wouldn’t they delay the thing too much?” - True, in some cases replays may need to be replaced by extra time etc. But this happens in qualifier matches anyway, and can greatly increase drama. Any loss in revenue would be more than compensated for in the Autumn with a much higher profile club season.
(3) “County players would spend the whole summer away from their club, only returning with Championship imminent to be slotted back in.” – Also true. However this is the case at the moment anyway. At least now once they’re back they stay back.
(4) “Club players aren’t as fit as county players – they wouldn’t want a game every week.” I firmly believe that given the choice they would. Certainly given the choice of playing every week during a known season thereby allowing them to commit to a holiday with their partners or whatever would be well worth the cost – and again, it would be the same for every club.
(5) “What about if the county needs to call someone up – club players will be way behind in their training.” Dedicated club players will probably be doing gym work over the winter anyway and staying in reasonable shape. Most county managers work with a squad of thirty – if the manager has managed to overlook one of the best fifteen footballers in a given county with fifteen other players, then they deserve to struggle on account of it.
(6) “All Ireland Final Sundays are supposed to be in September – it’s traditional – it just wouldn’t be the same if they were earlier” – when a watery sentiment like this is a reason for messing around some 300,000 active GAA players in this country, then clearly we don’t have our priorities right.

In this day and age we all know that intercounty players are amateur in name but very professional in the way they prepare for a championship season. However we are in danger of forcing the clubs to go the same way. A club team gearing for success needs to be at their sharpest from very early on. Last April Erin Rovers took the field against Ballycumber in Ferbane, and lost by 13 points to 8 in a parish derby. They went their remaining three games in the championship unbeaten, and still got eliminated- that loss to Ballycumber ultimately cost them. This shows how important it was for teams to be at their best straight out the gate. It’s unfair to expect club players to spend whole summers not booking holidays, 7 months of the year in training, all for the sake of probably 3 games. These are amateur players, and they deserve better – they deserve August and September. Let’s give that to them at least.

[Seán Boyle Ó Rathallaigh]

here, here

[Hyper]

Excellent. LS which route do you propose sending this article along?

[Lone Shark]

I've just edited the above article to add the fifth benefit - increased club attendances due to not having to go head to head with a live TV game.


Regarding moving this on further, I've thought about this, but I'm not really sure where to start. Email it to a county board person or two and see what they think I suppose. Any other ideas?

[turk]

send it to sean kelly.
and if he doesn't reply send it with another benefit saying he'll have more time free to try to force soccer and rubby into croke park!!

[Seán Boyle Ó Rathallaigh]

Send it to the élitist GPA and see what they have to say!

[turk]

dessie farrell could make a statement on it!

[Seán Boyle Ó Rathallaigh]

They'd probably send round their stazie men to crush the peasent uprising!

[Lone Shark]

Dessie probably wouldn't bother reading it since it doesn't come accompanied with a phone/car/wad of cash/80 litres of isotonic wee.

[The Biff]

Well done LS, you've touched on a problem I've considered quite serious, even though it doesn't directly affect me now.

An oft-quoted GAA mantra is that "the Club is the most important unit of the organisation". Well it does not seem that way when whole Club Championships get completely moth-balled during the best part of the Summer, just because 30 lads are playing for the County team.

It's no wonder that many good players turn to other sports instead. Why commit to the GAA when that committment to arrange and fulfill club fixtures is not reciprocated.

Whether your scheduling breakdown is the best one or not is a side-issue. But space must be found in the Playing Calendar for Club games and, more importantly, the committment to give them some priority.

[TheManFromFerbane]

Here Here

[Lone Shark]

Not expecting anything from it obviously, but all the same I emailed this on to a few email addresses that I could find on http://www.gaa.ie.

Surely they don't actually get read???????

http://www.gaa.ie/plugins/newsfeed.cgi? ... ta_id=8498


I've no doubt the idea was there anyway - but still! I'm quite proud this morning!!

[Biff O'Mahon]

They could've given you a bit of credit though!!!!!!!!!