GAA’s Central Council to consider proposal to condense season

Agreement on the need to condense the club football and hurling competitions into the one calendar year is now virtually unanimous. But agreement on how exactly to go about that could prove problematic.

Saturday’s Central Council meeting will finally consider a proposal to do just that, starting in 2016. A sub-committee – including GAA director general Páraic Duffy, GAA president Liam O’Neill, and former Cork goalkeeper Dónal Óg Cusack – have been considering the matter for several months and are now in a position to make their recommendation.

“This is the first time we’ll get to present our findings,” said Feargal McGill, the GAA’s head of games administration and sub-committee member.

“What Central Council might decide to do, on Saturday, is to reject it straightaway, make some decision on it there and then, or to go away and think about it.”

Even if the proposal is approved by Central Council, it would then require a two-thirds majority at GAA Congress, next month, before being implemented for 2016. Last June Central Council agreed in principle to move towards a calendar year for the club competitions. This followed one of the main recommendations of part two of the Football Review Committee.

Finals date

Essentially this will mean scrapping the traditional All-Ireland club finals date on St Patrick’s Day, which currently ensures both championships run well into the following year.

Condensing the club competitions into the same year would also require some shortening of the intercounty championship season, as all provincial club competitions would need to be concluded by mid November thus allowing the All-Ireland club semi-finals and finals to be played in December.

Dublin footballer Bernard Brogan this week identified several problems with the existing club and county schedule.

Some club players, he feels, are victims of their own success, in that a run in the club championship until March 17th definitely hinders their chances of breaking onto the county team, while trying to retain form for one or two games in the space of three months is, he maintains, “just ridiculous”.

“I haven’t been involved, personally, but to me the club championship running in to the New Year, and into Paddy’s Day, is totally wrong,” said Brogan. “I’ve seen it where it’s affected players, like when St Vincent’s went on to win the All-Ireland, and they had four or five lads that played well, who then come in to a Dublin set-up that has been training since last December.

“There’s already lads showing form there, young guys that played in the O’Byrne Cup, played in league games, and done well. Then some guy comes out of St Vincent’s after an All-Ireland final, after a couple of weeks break obviously . . . and they come into it in mid April or May, and they’ve no chance. Maybe not no chance, but it’s very difficult.

“I’ve seen it with Ballymun, before, where lads have been brilliant with their club all year, definitely have the ability to play for Dublin, but they’ve found it hard to break into the starting team at the end of May and start of June. It’s really hard to make a stamp. They just don’t have the same opportunity to break into a team as the guy who finished in November.”

“If you pulled everything back two months, you could squeeze it in. But it’s ridiculous having such a big break between the semi-finals and finals. You can’t keep a high level for three months.”

However moving the All-Ireland hurling and football finals from September into August, could be seen by some as sacrilege. But Mayo footballer Aidan O’Shea isn’t one of them.

“It’s nice to say the third Sunday in September but if it’s an All-Ireland football final on the third Sunday in August, it would still mean the same thing to me,” said O’Shea.

“The season is too long. It would probably need a structural change in some way, and you could start the league earlier. But then competitions like the FBD league are important too.

“We have 45 players in our squad, and there are lads that have to be given the opportunity to play. The league is very important, and you want to stay in Division One, so you can’t be putting in 12 youngsters.”