Local GAA fixtures crisis must be tackled or players will walk away

THERE is no end in sight to the fixtures crisis which continues to engulf the GAA. If anything, the situation is getting worse as the frustrations of club players, in particular, reach boiling point. There are simply too many competitions and too many games to now fit into the calendar year.

The much-heralded free month from inter-county activity last April sounded great in theory but, in reality, it didn’t work out so well. Some counties didn’t play any local championship games at all during that period, with the net result that a summer domestic famine is being followed by a mad rush to catch up in the Autumn.

At least Galway played off a couple of rounds of the senior hurling and football championships in April, but clubs were naturally unhappy that their elite players still had to train with the county teams and hadn’t unqualified access to them. Understandably, Micheál Donoghue and Kevin Walsh are only fighting their own corner with the provincial championships just around the corner, but it’s simply an indication of how crowded the fixtures calendar is.

Clubs now have to contend with playing two games in April only to be followed by lying idle for the next five months. It’s wholly unsatisfactory and leaves players twiddling their thumbs when they should be lining out in the club colours in the height of the summer. Hurling is obviously best suited to dry pitches and though the GAA got lucky with the weather in 2018, November county finals are now becoming the norm and that is not acceptable.

The tug of war between club and county has sharpened in the modern era, but this year the division became even more acute. The introduction of a round-robin system in the provincial hurling championships and the Super 8s in Gaelic football has obviously led to even less scope for club activity. These extra matches are also placing huge demands on inter-county players as they experience more competitive action in a reduced timeframe.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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