Here is a selection of views
https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/gaelic-games/darragh-o-se-gaa-losing-out-as-other-sports-reach-their-endgames-1.4874956If I’m honest about it, I’m not hearing the noise. The provincial football championships are racing through at breakneck speed and there is something not quite right about it. There’s ducking and diving and dodging going on against a lot of other sports – the Champions League, Heineken Cup, the endgame to the English Premier League – that it is all so hectic just now and they’re getting lost in the midst of it all.
It is like bumper cars; and I think the GAA are losing!
Unfortunately the GAA are like a boat turning in the water decision-wise, and you’ve still got this 60-40 majority you’ve to get at congress for anything to happen. That’s archaic and you just can’t progress. Every other sport we are competing with – be it soccer, or rugby or whatever – can make real-time decisions based on commerciality and for the good of their games.
The GAA has given away its best two months of the intercounty calendar – in August and September – when it had the stage to itself and was the only show in town.
https://www.rte.ie/sport/gaa/2022/0411/1291647-bonnar-short-season-leaves-players-in-vicious-circle/Tipperary manager Colm Bonnar feels that the new split-season format has left county players trapped in "a vicious circle" with no period of downtime
Bonnar said that the lack of preparation time between league and championship was hard to deal with.
"Looking at it now, if players aren't fully fit when they come into you – most of the [club] campaigns are finishing at the end of October – a lot of them are in to November if they’re in to the final stages of their own hurling campaigns in the county.
"There’s just no time off for players anymore. It’s a vicious circle and we’ve found that if players weren’t coming to us....we’d have a six-week period leading into the league where we’re officially allowed to train the players and if you’re not fit coming in there, you’re straight away struggling and probably won’t make the league. The league will be over before you get your fitness and before you know it the championship is on top of you.
"You have a five-month window really from January to May and it’s your championship season. It’s over before you know it. That’s going to be very, very unusual if they keep that format.
"It just means players if they want to play for their county, they’re going to have to keep that conditioning and that preparedness constantly as long as they want to play hurling at a high level
https://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/gaa/arid-40969997.html"The famous ESRI reports, which highlighted inter-county players were spending up to 31 hours a week towards their commitments in 2016, were interpreted in different ways by the GAA and the GPA. The GAA’s decision to cut the length of the inter-county season may eventually lead to a better training to game ratio but the concentrated period is a challenge."
Effectively cutting eight weeks from the GAA’s highest profile products hasn’t been the easiest sell as some of the reactions to the split season would demonstrate. The loss of profile argument is one both Duffy and Ryan have railed against, Duffy having previously argued against moving the All-Irelands out of September, but it is not going to go away.
Replays would never be budgeted for and are considered bonuses and without them that average gate receipt figure would have dipped below €30m. Now that they are all but gone from the championships – all games are winners on the day and All-Ireland finals first have to go to extra-time before they can be replayed.
smaller inter-county window may prove less appealing commercially.
The tangible cost of the split season? Excluding the team preparations savings it will bring, a price tag of somewhere around €3m is within reason
https://www.rte.ie/sport/football/2022/0912/1322014-sherlock-split-season-requires-period-of-reflection/Sherlock said that the shortened inter-county season puts extra pressure on coaching teams between games, and he believes Derry's All-Ireland semi-final loss to Galway was a good example of this "The challenge with a shorter season is the preparation. It's very hard to prepare, particularly going from a semi-final into a final.
"Obviously, physically and mentally, it almost takes a week before the players recover from what they've done. Then, you have to focus your attention on another team. So you have to prepare for them. Then you obviously have to prepare for yourself."You take Derry as an example. Going into that Galway match, it's easy to say in hindsight that they should have had 'Plan B', and should have played attacking football, but when you have such a limited window, there's only so much you can work on.
"The reality is if guys are together three or four times a week, that's as much as you have. You don't have time like a professional where you can cover everything."From a coaching point of view, I'd prefer the longer season because you have more time to ensure that you have all your players, a full compliment, because you'll obviously have injuries."Then, tactically, you can prepare against what you're going to compete against but also then you can work out what's the best team for a given day."
https://www.rte.ie/sport/hurling/2023/0106/1345281-timing-is-everything-calendar-sharpens-january-focus/"Every player now, you can never relax fully. You need to be ticking over in the down season. I think that maintenance work is going to ramp up even more in the next couple of years because of the split-season."
https://www.rte.ie/sport/hurling/2023/0106/1345281-timing-is-everything-calendar-sharpens-january-focus/"I do think some counties do have to slim down to 12-team or 16-team championships to have them run off properly in a calendar season. I can understand the reasons why some counties have a Senior B championship but clear out all that rubbish, make it Senior, Intermediate and then Junior 1, Junior 2 etc
https://www.rte.ie/sport/hurling/2023/0106/1345281-timing-is-everything-calendar-sharpens-january-focus/"The championship needs to be a bit longer, it's compressed a little bit too much"
"I think the split-season has been quite successful but I certainly wouldn't jump into it for the next 10 years without giving it really good thought about all the aspects," he says. "Particularly how you’re going to grow the game and keep it at the forefront for young people.
https://www.rte.ie/sport/hurling/2023/0106/1345281-timing-is-everything-calendar-sharpens-january-focus/"Every player now, you can never relax fully. You need to be ticking over in the down season. I think that maintenance work is going to ramp up even more in the next couple of years because of the split-season."
Even now, as we head into the second year of the divided county-club calendar, the All-Ireland club finals will spill over into January 2024, with the result that players from those clubs usually end up missing league fixtures.
"I would like to see some definite down-time for all players," says Cheddar. "Even those last couple of weeks of the year. Everyone needs a break, even mentally.
"Take TJ Reid for example, one of the best hurlers of any generation, over the last few seasons he is playing well into the year with inter-county and then into the following year with his club Ballyhale.
"You probably have to have a bit of flexibility in year one but I would expect the GAA authorities to tighten up with that.
"I do think some counties do have to slim down to 12-team or 16-team championships to have them run off properly in a calendar season. I can understand the reasons why some counties have a Senior B championship but clear out all that rubbish, make it Senior, Intermediate and then Junior 1, Junior 2 etc.
"I think if all counties had that it would be much easier then to schedule games to make sure that your All-Ireland club championship is going to be held on the second Sunday in December."
"The championship needs to be a bit longer, it's compressed a little bit too much"
Plunkett, who will take charge of Kilkenny intermediate club St Martin's next year, thinks the new calendar model is a move in the right direction but is far from the finished article.
"I think the split-season has been quite successful but I certainly wouldn't jump into it for the next 10 years without giving it really good thought about all the aspects," he says. "Particularly how you’re going to grow the game and keep it at the forefront for young people.
"Having it last year was really good because it gave us a sense of what it looks like. But what are we comparing that against
? We would have to have, for example, a blended season or something to compare It with.
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