GAA Congress has chance to give young players real break

Next week’s annual GAA Congress will consider hugely significant rule changes, which can make major inroads on the problem of burnout and rationalising the games calendar.

There hasn’t been much fuss, probably because many people are fed up or bewildered by the constant efforts to address this issue and the apparently unending list of fixes being floated.

Now, here’s why it’s so important.

If there’s one besetting difficulty at the heart of these problems it’s the issue of multi-eligibility or the fact that so many young players – the cohort most at risk from burnout–- are qualified to play for so many teams. There have outstanding exemplars of this, usually minors who are gifted dual players.

Cork's Brian Corcoran was reckoned to have racked up a dozen teams one year and in more recent times Laois's John O'Loughlin was in the same ballpark. GAA players can be flogged out for all sorts of teams from club to college to county.

Stack silverware

What has become forgotten is that under-21 and minor are development grades, not primarily intended as an opportunity to stack silverware in a trophy cabinet.

If minor becomes under-17, then minors can’t be under-21s and if under-21s become under-20s under the provisions of motion five on the Congress clár, none of the players involved will be allowed combine that with playing senior intercounty.

It would also eliminate at a stroke for instance the business of one minor intercounty player being ‘ responsible’ for a club fixture having to be called off.

This is the very time of the year that the various burnout committees and work groups have focused on. In full flight are the national leagues, the under-21 football intercounty championship and the higher-education competitions.

Last Sunday after the win over All-Ireland champions Kilkenny, Waterford hurling manager Derek McGrath said that the league had become too demanding.

“It’s dog-eat-dog each week and I don’t agree with it. It sounds contradictory to say but it’s almost too serious . . .

“We’re in the same situation this week: quarter-finals of the Fitzgibbon and it looks like you’re reaching for excuses but I think if there was a two-tier top division with six teams in each it would give you more of an opportunity. I think we didn’t use a sub until 63 or 64 minutes. The contrast with last year is that we were able to blood fellas and bring them in whereas I don’t think this allows for that.

“You’re almost selfishly being led by whether you’re being relegated or promoted and I don’t think that’s an ideal scenario because it brings pressure . . .”

McGrath has a young team with a few involved in the Fitzgibbon. Colin Dunford has the balance of the human Nijinsky and the pace of the eponymous racehorse but he's been trying to tear across surfaces as suitable for hurling as the Everglades. IT IT Carlow v Waterford on Tuesday night was his third match in eight days.

Colleges is a level that sometimes gets a bad press but it is a far more age-appropriate sphere of activity than senior inter-county and just for the few weeks at the start of the year. McGrath has spoken sympathetically about this in the past and was a Fitzgibbon medallist as a UCC student in his playing days.

Former Tipperary All-Ireland winner as player and manager and this newspaper's hurling analyst Nicky English is currently coaching UCD, who played in the Fitzgibbon quarter-final on Tuesday, and he goes even farther on this when talking about the pressures on college players.

“I’m a big advocate of third level. Some of my most enjoyable days were playing in UCC. We need to have players enjoying it and they shouldn’t have to train constantly. It’s more important in my view to build a social ‘fabric’ of friends from different counties and other disciplines than to be caught up in relentless training with county teams.

"College is an environment which can influence lives for the better and establish friendships that last throughout your life. I've watched as the pressure on players has increased to the point where they don't get to involve themselves as fully as I think is beneficial. They're rushing around and there's a danger that Fitzgibbon, which I loved as a player, is becoming more like the Railway Cup which I hated."

Great news

It would be great news if Congress backs these two proposals on minor and under-21. It would be further cause for celebration were the GAA also to recognise that third-level colleges are a vital environment for the development of young people and that having their own team, for which they play and which they administer themselves, is a hugely rewarding experience.

There’ll be time enough for the unrelenting rigour and seriousness of senior intercounty regimes. Surely players could be ring-fenced for third-level involvement during January and as much of February as occupies their competitive seasons?

They emerge as better players and their lives are invariably enhanced by the friendships and social interaction they enjoy. This would also thin out the demands on players in keeping with the GAA’s evolving policy on protecting its young members.

email: smoran@irishtimes.com