GAA Response to Coronavirus

[An Fhairche Abu]

Agreed Fhairce but why didn't the GAA lay down the law to spectators from the start?.
200 people on 5,000 seat stands all let huddle together.
Not a lot they could do about supporters gathering afterwards but couldn't all Championship winning clubs be told in advance not to hold any mass celebrations?
No matter what levels we go to in the 26 or what "circuit breakers" in the 6 it's time the GAA abandoned inter County for 2020 and leave it at that.

GAA absolutely at fault as well, should have mandated no sitting together in the stands regardless if you came from the same household.
Yeah I think you are correct to say that the IC championship should just be called off at this stage as sad as that is to say.

Blame game towards people is a waste of time, I could go on in detail about how the poorly controlled indoor factories played a big part in the spike in our covid cases in late July early August but I won't. This bloody annoying virus is the main thing to blame.

Disagree entirely, we have to live with this virus for the foreseeable now, that means people have to do things correctly to minimise the damage, people are acting selfishly and shouldn't be pointing to other failures as an excuse for their own unacceptable behaviour. Blaming the virus is of no practical value at all, the substandard Government response is an entirely other valid criticism to make alright but there's no merit in people using golfgate as an excuse to do whatever they feel like either.
I think I'm just bemused at how blasé people are about it themselves during and after the matches, it's as if they think that because they are outside there's some automatic immunity conferred.

[Cunny Funt]

Blame game towards people is a waste of time, I could go on in detail about how the poorly controlled indoor factories played a big part in the spike in our covid cases in late July early August but I won't. This bloody annoying virus is the main thing to blame.

Yes, but people need to stop doing what they were doing, be they factories or sport bodies. Those factories do not purport to be community organisations, they are there to make money, but the GAA should have a higher ambition.

The people did before and we got down to 69 weekly cases at one time but this virus is always looking for somewhere new to seed and once we get troublesome clusters it proves very difficult and many weeks to bring the numbers back down hence the requirement for some restrictions.

[BennyCake]

GAA needs to call a halt to the season. They made the right call at the beginning of this pandemic and they need to do the same again, I know in the north here there is a section of people that are just waiting to lay the blame at the GAA if this gets any worse.

The GAA aren't exactly helping themselves as pointed out by previous posters. John Horan was quick to call out NPHET when they introduced limitiations but the silence from Croke Park has been deafening the last few weeks as you see all the videos/tv pictures of clubs and/or county boards ignoring social distancing rules

Main thing that isn't helping is the mixed messages and state of confusion.

GAA asked for clarity as to why the 200 ( number including players officials etc) at matches in ROI suddenly became zero. Only for weeks later with a higher covid case loads 200 supporters was allowed to attend.

This is giving people a cop out that they don't deserve, at no stage has anyone in authority said that social distancing has been done away with. The lack of personal responsibility from GAA supporters is indefensible and will certainly be a contributing factor to costing us the inter county season as now looks likely.

Yes, totally agree.

[armaghniac]

Blame game towards people is a waste of time, I could go on in detail about how the poorly controlled indoor factories played a big part in the spike in our covid cases in late July early August but I won't. This bloody annoying virus is the main thing to blame.

Yes, but people need to stop doing what they were doing, be they factories or sport bodies. Those factories do not purport to be community organisations, they are there to make money, but the GAA should have a higher ambition.

The people did before and we got down to 69 weekly cases at one time but this virus is always looking for somewhere new to seed and once we get troublesome clusters it proves very difficult and many weeks to bring the numbers back down hence the requirement for some restrictions.

Having got it down we were too blasé about keeping it low. Everyone said, there are few cases, no deaths, no problem. And the cases weren't a problem but the week in week out growth in numbers was always eventually going to become a problem. but people continued acting the maggot.

[Baile Brigín 2]

Absolutely woeful from gaa and county boards since games resumed. Deserve to be shut down. Crowding, hugging, over attendances, opening gates . No efforts to curtail it. How hard is it to spray down a few marks?!. Every dog on the street knows that partying after games and for days is the biggest threat but not a word about it from clubs or boards. Teams heading to the capitals from binges days after finals and then coming back to their communities .

Fair enough, but there is a level of personal responsibility here.  People are being willfully irresponsible and the fact that an awful lot of people are now extremely cynical about Covid precautions is not something the GAA can do much about. This is particularly the case at club level, where you are not only asking a chairman to set down rules in regard to championship celebrations, but then to enforce them.   That might mean rebuking players, club mates and neighbours about social distancing.  But what then about private house parties etc?  What can they do about that?

The bottom line is that there is now a large proportion of the country that doesn't want to be told to wear a mask or social distance as they think it is all a load of shit.  They may have done everything right before, but following endless mixed messages and inconsistency, they have now had enough and there is no telling people - no matter how selfish it might seem.

We had almost 1,000 cases in one day last Friday in the north. I would expect that to be significantly exceeded early this week and continue to grow exponentially unless there is another lockdown of sorts.  If the disease is as dangerous as it was in the spring, sooner or later that will translate into significant increases in hospital admissions and that's where this becomes a major problem. 

Getting back to the GAA's responsibility, the only way is probably to shut it down, then the clubs will not be put in such an invidious position. The leadership is required at the top, not at the bottom.

Hogwash. If a club chairman can't implement a policy he shouldn't be in the job. Chairmen in other sports have no such problems.

You tell your players to not return to the club for 2 weeks if they break lockdown.

[Smokin Joe]

All club games suspended across the island with immediate effect, but training can continue.

"The GAA's Management Committee has today endorsed a decision to suspend all GAA Club games ​at all levels with immediate effect ​and until further notice. 

The decision has been taken in the interest of public safety following a number of incidents that have been brought to our attention in recent days. ​In particular, post-match celebrations and a lack of social distancing at certain events have proved disappointing and problematic.

This directive applies to all ages and all grades across the island. 

Club Social Centres / bars are also to close.

​Training will continue to be permitted as per the guidelines outlined for the relevant levels in the Government's National Framework for Living with Covid 19 and relevant guidelines in the Six Counties.

The GAA will continue to monitor the situation in the ​coming days and weeks, regarding changes in government guidelines, before liaising with our units accordingly. 

The Association would also like to acknowledge all of those units who have worked diligently in complying with the public health advice around the staging of our games and training sessions since activity resumed. 

More than ever, we ask that you continue with this approach where training sessions for your players is continuing."

[Cunny Funt]

Blame game towards people is a waste of time, I could go on in detail about how the poorly controlled indoor factories played a big part in the spike in our covid cases in late July early August but I won't. This bloody annoying virus is the main thing to blame.

Yes, but people need to stop doing what they were doing, be they factories or sport bodies. Those factories do not purport to be community organisations, they are there to make money, but the GAA should have a higher ambition.

The people did before and we got down to 69 weekly cases at one time but this virus is always looking for somewhere new to seed and once we get troublesome clusters it proves very difficult and many weeks to bring the numbers back down hence the requirement for some restrictions.

Having got it down we were too blasé about keeping it low. Everyone said, there are few cases, no deaths, no problem. And the cases weren't a problem but the week in week out growth in numbers was always eventually going to become a problem. but people continued acting the maggot.

Don't disagree there but the blame game list is endless. Just a few off the top of my head.

- Too close to England who have a foolish leader
- North and south in this island with different set of rules and
  one looking to the guidance from Boris
- young people having house parties
- birthdays, communions gatherings in households
- ROI changing the government during the virus
- golfgate
- not closing the Airports
- GAA community having no cop on
- the many non mask wearing loons having protests
- BLM protests
- reopening schools
- reopening pubs
- reopening restaurants
- indoor factories
- the traveling and gypsy community
- foreign prostitutes
-  October and still a poor track and trace system

[GetOverTheBar]

Foreign prostitutes 

[APM]

Absolutely woeful from gaa and county boards since games resumed. Deserve to be shut down. Crowding, hugging, over attendances, opening gates . No efforts to curtail it. How hard is it to spray down a few marks?!. Every dog on the street knows that partying after games and for days is the biggest threat but not a word about it from clubs or boards. Teams heading to the capitals from binges days after finals and then coming back to their communities .

Fair enough, but there is a level of personal responsibility here.  People are being willfully irresponsible and the fact that an awful lot of people are now extremely cynical about Covid precautions is not something the GAA can do much about. This is particularly the case at club level, where you are not only asking a chairman to set down rules in regard to championship celebrations, but then to enforce them.   That might mean rebuking players, club mates and neighbours about social distancing.  But what then about private house parties etc?  What can they do about that?

The bottom line is that there is now a large proportion of the country that doesn't want to be told to wear a mask or social distance as they think it is all a load of shit.  They may have done everything right before, but following endless mixed messages and inconsistency, they have now had enough and there is no telling people - no matter how selfish it might seem.

We had almost 1,000 cases in one day last Friday in the north. I would expect that to be significantly exceeded early this week and continue to grow exponentially unless there is another lockdown of sorts.  If the disease is as dangerous as it was in the spring, sooner or later that will translate into significant increases in hospital admissions and that's where this becomes a major problem. 

Getting back to the GAA's responsibility, the only way is probably to shut it down, then the clubs will not be put in such an invidious position. The leadership is required at the top, not at the bottom.

Hogwash. If a club chairman can't implement a policy he shouldn't be in the job. Chairmen in other sports have no such problems.

You tell your players to not return to the club for 2 weeks if they break lockdown.

I watched that celebration in Cork (Glanmire or Blackrock, dunno which) and I agree that the club bears a lot of responsibility for those scenes - should be marshalling etc.  But take a team in Division 4 celebrating a junior championship in pubs and in house parties.  What can the club committee possibly do about that, assuming they want to take a responsible approach?  They have won the championship, the season is over, the parties aren't on club premises, there is no sanction possible.  What can they do but provide a good example.  The real leadership needs to come from Croke Park and the problem all along since the end of lockdown has been that Croke Park has left it up to the counties and the clubs to decide for themselves how to deal with this and decisions need to be taken out of club's hands.     

[magpie seanie]

It's a shame that a lot of the good the GAA did by way of community work by clubs and the professional way returning to play was handled has been undermined by scenes at and outside grounds in the last few weeks. GAA should have handled it better but overall society has got way too complacent. Wouldn't have liked to be a GAA steward 3/4 weeks ago telling people to sit/stand apart.

[Fear Bun Na Sceilpe]

Blame game towards people is a waste of time, I could go on in detail about how the poorly controlled indoor factories played a big part in the spike in our covid cases in late July early August but I won't. This bloody annoying virus is the main thing to blame.

Yes, but people need to stop doing what they were doing, be they factories or sport bodies. Those factories do not purport to be community organisations, they are there to make money, but the GAA should have a higher ambition.

The people did before and we got down to 69 weekly cases at one time but this virus is always looking for somewhere new to seed and once we get troublesome clusters it proves very difficult and many weeks to bring the numbers back down hence the requirement for some restrictions.

Having got it down we were too blasé about keeping it low. Everyone said, there are few cases, no deaths, no problem. And the cases weren't a problem but the week in week out growth in numbers was always eventually going to become a problem. but people continued acting the maggot.

Don't disagree there but the blame game list is endless. Just a few off the top of my head.

- Too close to England who have a foolish leader
- North and south in this island with different set of rules and
  one looking to the guidance from Boris
- young people having house parties
- birthdays, communions gatherings in households
- ROI changing the government during the virus
- golfgate
- not closing the Airports
- GAA community having no cop on
- the many non mask wearing loons having protests
- BLM protests
- reopening schools
- reopening pubs
- reopening restaurants
- indoor factories
- the traveling and gypsy community
- foreign prostitutes
-  October and still a poor track and trace system

THE BOBBY STOREY FUNERAL. How did you forget that and how bad does that look now. Not even a sniff of a resignation

[GetOverTheBar]

Feel sorry for clubs at senior / youth level with something on the line to play for, it looks like they might not get resolved for the foreseeable with the news today.

[dublin7]

Absolutely woeful from gaa and county boards since games resumed. Deserve to be shut down. Crowding, hugging, over attendances, opening gates . No efforts to curtail it. How hard is it to spray down a few marks?!. Every dog on the street knows that partying after games and for days is the biggest threat but not a word about it from clubs or boards. Teams heading to the capitals from binges days after finals and then coming back to their communities .

Fair enough, but there is a level of personal responsibility here.  People are being willfully irresponsible and the fact that an awful lot of people are now extremely cynical about Covid precautions is not something the GAA can do much about. This is particularly the case at club level, where you are not only asking a chairman to set down rules in regard to championship celebrations, but then to enforce them.   That might mean rebuking players, club mates and neighbours about social distancing.  But what then about private house parties etc?  What can they do about that?

The bottom line is that there is now a large proportion of the country that doesn't want to be told to wear a mask or social distance as they think it is all a load of shit.  They may have done everything right before, but following endless mixed messages and inconsistency, they have now had enough and there is no telling people - no matter how selfish it might seem.

We had almost 1,000 cases in one day last Friday in the north. I would expect that to be significantly exceeded early this week and continue to grow exponentially unless there is another lockdown of sorts.  If the disease is as dangerous as it was in the spring, sooner or later that will translate into significant increases in hospital admissions and that's where this becomes a major problem. 

Getting back to the GAA's responsibility, the only way is probably to shut it down, then the clubs will not be put in such an invidious position. The leadership is required at the top, not at the bottom.

Hogwash. If a club chairman can't implement a policy he shouldn't be in the job. Chairmen in other sports have no such problems.

You tell your players to not return to the club for 2 weeks if they break lockdown.

I watched that celebration in Cork (Glanmire or Blackrock, dunno which) and I agree that the club bears a lot of responsibility for those scenes - should be marshalling etc.  But take a team in Division 4 celebrating a junior championship in pubs and in house parties.  What can the club committee possibly do about that, assuming they want to take a responsible approach?  They have won the championship, the season is over, the parties aren't on club premises, there is no sanction possible.  What can they do but provide a good example.  The real leadership needs to come from Croke Park and the problem all along since the end of lockdown has been that Croke Park has left it up to the counties and the clubs to decide for themselves how to deal with this and decisions need to be taken out of club's hands.   

It really isn't that difficult to segregate in the stands in most grounds. A few stewards and tape to stop rows from being used is one simple measure. There was only supposed to be a max of 200 in the grounds so its not like there should have been loads of supporters at the games making social distancing difficult.

If players want to go out on the piss then yes there is nothing the club can do about it. Blackrock officials however organised the parade after the game for the team and supporters and advertised it on the club's twitter account encouraging people to take part. That's indefensible

[Baile Brigín 2]

Absolutely woeful from gaa and county boards since games resumed. Deserve to be shut down. Crowding, hugging, over attendances, opening gates . No efforts to curtail it. How hard is it to spray down a few marks?!. Every dog on the street knows that partying after games and for days is the biggest threat but not a word about it from clubs or boards. Teams heading to the capitals from binges days after finals and then coming back to their communities .

Fair enough, but there is a level of personal responsibility here.  People are being willfully irresponsible and the fact that an awful lot of people are now extremely cynical about Covid precautions is not something the GAA can do much about. This is particularly the case at club level, where you are not only asking a chairman to set down rules in regard to championship celebrations, but then to enforce them.   That might mean rebuking players, club mates and neighbours about social distancing.  But what then about private house parties etc?  What can they do about that?

The bottom line is that there is now a large proportion of the country that doesn't want to be told to wear a mask or social distance as they think it is all a load of shit.  They may have done everything right before, but following endless mixed messages and inconsistency, they have now had enough and there is no telling people - no matter how selfish it might seem.

We had almost 1,000 cases in one day last Friday in the north. I would expect that to be significantly exceeded early this week and continue to grow exponentially unless there is another lockdown of sorts.  If the disease is as dangerous as it was in the spring, sooner or later that will translate into significant increases in hospital admissions and that's where this becomes a major problem. 

Getting back to the GAA's responsibility, the only way is probably to shut it down, then the clubs will not be put in such an invidious position. The leadership is required at the top, not at the bottom.

Hogwash. If a club chairman can't implement a policy he shouldn't be in the job. Chairmen in other sports have no such problems.

You tell your players to not return to the club for 2 weeks if they break lockdown.

I watched that celebration in Cork (Glanmire or Blackrock, dunno which) and I agree that the club bears a lot of responsibility for those scenes - should be marshalling etc.  But take a team in Division 4 celebrating a junior championship in pubs and in house parties.  What can the club committee possibly do about that, assuming they want to take a responsible approach?  They have won the championship, the season is over, the parties aren't on club premises, there is no sanction possible.  What can they do but provide a good example.  The real leadership needs to come from Croke Park and the problem all along since the end of lockdown has been that Croke Park has left it up to the counties and the clubs to decide for themselves how to deal with this and decisions need to be taken out of club's hands.   

How do clubs handle players drinking in general? Nothing they can do to stop it but if players are acting the maghot they get dropped. Why not the same here? A strict instruction and a clear warning as to what happens if they get rumbled

But you are right, its about leadership and Croker have stepped in with the big stick.

[Rossfan]

Stewards would have been able to sort out the Johnny Thickasses if there were clear instructions given to Co Boards, Clubs etc with the game geting called off if distancing wasn't observed.
Basic things like taping off rows etc wouldnt have been too difficult.
We now have the nuclear option if all out.
They may as well cancel the County games too.