GAA Response to Coronavirus

[Smokin Joe]

Spectators in the North allowed in for tomorrow night's games.

"From Friday 24 July the following changes will take effect:

Spectators will be allowed to attend outdoor sporting venues "where the operator can control access and ensure adherence to social distancing"

[armaghniac]

Spectators in the North allowed in for tomorrow night's games.

"From Friday 24 July the following changes will take effect:

Spectators will be allowed to attend outdoor sporting venues "where the operator can control access and ensure adherence to social distancing"

Three quarters of clubs will do a good job, some won't have a crowd, but you can get that some will make a mockery of the whole thing with a load of people standing together.

[Cunny Funt]

Spectators in the North allowed in for tomorrow night's games.

"From Friday 24 July the following changes will take effect:

Spectators will be allowed to attend outdoor sporting venues "where the operator can control access and ensure adherence to social distancing"

How many spectators allowed?

To answer my own question. It's 400 allowed. Makes little sense why the ROI counties can only have 200 at club games.

[armaghniac]

Spectators in the North allowed in for tomorrow night's games.

"From Friday 24 July the following changes will take effect:

Spectators will be allowed to attend outdoor sporting venues "where the operator can control access and ensure adherence to social distancing"

How many spectators allowed?

To answer my own question. It's 400 allowed. Makes little sense why the ROI counties can only have 200 at club games.

In the case of a GAA pitch the perimeter fence is 400 metres. No problem accommodating this crowd if they spread out a bit,

[balladmaker]

Travelling to away underage games ... is it correct to assume that all children from different households should travel separately to the game, or are children from different households ok to share a lift?

My view is that children from different families should travel separately but I stand to be corrected .... thoughts?

[Smokin Joe]

Travelling to away underage games ... is it correct to assume that all children from different households should travel separately to the game, or are children from different households ok to share a lift?

My view is that children from different families should travel separately but I stand to be corrected .... thoughts?

They are to travel separately.  This will leave it difficult for some teams to field for away games, as not ever parent will be willing to transport to away games.

[Farrandeelin]

Travelling to away underage games ... is it correct to assume that all children from different households should travel separately to the game, or are children from different households ok to share a lift?

My view is that children from different families should travel separately but I stand to be corrected .... thoughts?

They are to travel separately.  This will leave it difficult for some teams to field for away games, as not ever parent will be willing to transport to away games.

That's true, and having to wait 45 minutes beforehand for the warm up will be an issue for some.

[Cunny Funt]

Agree with Oisin McConville.

Former Armagh star has welcomed the new directive which will allow crowds of up to 400 people into GAA matches in grounds across the six northern counties.

The Northern Ireland Executive announced yesterday that from Friday, 24 July, spectators can return to outdoor sporting venues where "access can be controlled and social distancing maintained" as part of their latest rules on easing lockdown restrictions.

Speaking to RTE Sport, McConville said he would now like to see a uniformity approach, agreed by both governments, which would allow for the same numbers to attend games at GAA matches across all 32 counties.

"It's welcomed by the majority of people up here because in some of the games last week we had a lot  of people congregating in the same area trying to get a view of the game having not been allowed into the ground,"

"This is a much safer option and it's definitely welcome because there is a real hunger there for people to get back into watching the games.

"When you think of the grounds that we have nowadays, the majority of championship matches coming up will be played in big grounds and 400 in a ground is not a stretch."

He added: "Hopefully we can get to something uniform, agreed by both governments and the GAA and that's when we'd get to an acceptable point that people would be happy with."

[armaghniac]

Agree with Oisin McConville.

Former Armagh star has welcomed the new directive which will allow crowds of up to 400 people into GAA matches in grounds across the six northern counties.

The Northern Ireland Executive announced yesterday that from Friday, 24 July, spectators can return to outdoor sporting venues where "access can be controlled and social distancing maintained" as part of their latest rules on easing lockdown restrictions.

Speaking to RTE Sport, McConville said he would now like to see a uniformity approach, agreed by both governments, which would allow for the same numbers to attend games at GAA matches across all 32 counties.

"It's welcomed by the majority of people up here because in some of the games last week we had a lot  of people congregating in the same area trying to get a view of the game having not been allowed into the ground,"

"This is a much safer option and it's definitely welcome because there is a real hunger there for people to get back into watching the games.

"When you think of the grounds that we have nowadays, the majority of championship matches coming up will be played in big grounds and 400 in a ground is not a stretch."

He added: "Hopefully we can get to something uniform, agreed by both governments and the GAA and that's when we'd get to an acceptable point that people would be happy with."

There is a strong element of laziness in the authorities approach to this. These grounds have already been certified for 10,000 plus attendances in many cases. Would it be so hard to prescribe a formula saying max crowd 400 or certified capacity/8 or some other calculation.

[Sportacus]

I haven't read back through this thread so sorry if this is a repeat - but Killeavy now have 5 players positive according to BBC.  If something like this happens to Dublin mid October, what happens then? 

[APM]

I haven't read back through this thread so sorry if this is a repeat - but Killeavy now have 5 players positive according to BBC.  If something like this happens to Dublin mid October, what happens then? 

They won't get 6 in a row 

[armaghniac]

I haven't read back through this thread so sorry if this is a repeat - but Killeavy now have 5 players positive according to BBC.  If something like this happens to Dublin mid October, what happens then? 

They won't get 6 in a row 

It would depend on which 5 players they were missing, they have a bigger panel than Killeavy.

[marty34]

Whats the story with U16's at these championahip games?

Do they pay or are they free in or is it adults only?

Do they count as part of the 250/400?

[imtommygunn]

I think I saw somewhere that "juveniles" and senior citizens do.

[seafoid]

https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/gaelic-games/if-covid-shaming-becomes-the-norm-fewer-players-will-come-forward-1.4312615?mode=amp

Old Leighlin did everything correctly. They went above and beyond the GAA guidelines and squashed any chance of transmission immediately. Hayden was glued to his phone for a week, waiting on every last test result to come back before he could put out a statement saying the club was open for business again. But still, all the while, the curtains were twitching in the background.

"You're wasting your breath in a lot of cases," Hayden says. "It's not worth the effort. But you're hearing loads of stuff back that just isn't true. It went around that he was a mentor on a few underage teams and that would have implications in terms of some other clubs that we would have played but it wasn't the case.

"And then even just locally, when it came to who was a close contact, everyone seemed to be an expert on what a close contact is and who would be considered one. That started to stir up more stuff and it meant that for a few days, everyone was looking over their shoulder at anyone who was a member of our club.

"People were going, 'Are you one of them? What are you doing outside your door? What are doing going into the local shop?' That kind of stuff. We're only a very small village so you can imagine what that could do. Now, the locals were great and we were able to get on top of things quickly and they appreciated that. But it's just the unknown. And the fear."

Through it all, the club had nobody higher up in the GAA to turn to. Not at county board level and not in Croke Park. Their existence as a GAA club was the sole reason anyone heard about the positive test outside the man's family and close contacts. Yet beyond two-page guide downloadable from the GAA website, there was nowhere for Hayden to go at a time when he felt his club was under attack.

If anything, in fact, the words of GAA president John Horan that week made things worse. Within 24 hours of Old Leighlin shutting down operations, Horan was on Morning Ireland saying that players, "have got to make a clear decision. Either you party or you play sport. Sport and partying are not going to work at the moment because it's partying that has brought many of these challenges to our doors as regards to the virus."

The Old Leighlin player hadn't been to a party but without Horan making that clear, how were people to know? They were one of a tiny handful of clubs known to have a positive test in their ranks and here was the GAA's top man saying that house parties were to blame for many of the cases. Loose talk like that was always going allow people to put two and two together and if you were the five in the middle of it, you were in a lonely place.

"We were left hanging a bit," says Hayden. "That did annoy me. There was no point of contact, nobody to help with putting together a statement, nobody even to bounce things off. There were so many different opinions flying around and it would have been helpful to have somebody to call. Even just somebody to come out and say, 'Look, this club did nothing wrong.'"

Hayden is happy to say the Old Leighlin player is recovering well and will be welcomed back when he feels he's over it. He says that if there's another case, they will do exactly the same thing, even if it happens in the middle of championship. He hopes that all clubs would do the same.

Which is all very well, except you wouldn't wish the week Old Leighlin had on anybody. If Covid-shaming becomes the norm, if the stigma hangs around, if the president keeps blaming house parties, there's going to be less and less incentive for players to come forward. The worst thing that could happen is somebody hiding a positive test having seen how a club is treated.