GAA Playing Schedule

[sammymaguire]

Just posting this up here for people's thoughts...

Maybe we need to get a campaign going on here; we can draw up our own schedule of GAA fixtures, competitions and events online; ALL SUGGESTIONS WELCOME. I am basing this mainly on football, so hurling folk any comments welcome.

Its still an amateur sport as far as I was aware

DEC/JAN - NO GAA playing competitions FEB - Training for club players commences.

Inter-County (I dont think it needs to be re-jigged an awful lot actually)
mid FEB-APRIL - NATIONAL LEAGUES (Dr McKenna, O'Byrne Cup, etc being run in Jan is ridiculous, these comps should be used to blood new players in the county jersey, only lads who have not played a full senior championship match should be eligible so it could also begin in March). This gives most players a break until April when Leagues and National Leagues begin.
MAY-SEPT - CHAMPIONSHIP (I see no major reason why this needs to be tweaked as gaelic games is a summer sport, this should remain the same and the breaks between games should give players a chance to focus on their club games as long as the county boards are told to run their own comps rigidly and not be dicated by the activities of the 30 or so lads playing county games)

Club (This is something which needs to be sorted out as it affects ALL playing members of the GAA)
MAR - All-Ireland finals should be seen as the beginning of the new CLUB season on St Paddy's Day.
APRIL- JUNE (All leagues should be half completed at this stage)
JULY-AUG (Championships should begin 1st week of July in EVERY county, running in conjunction with leagues, which should mean that league should be fully complete by end AUG including league final)
SEPT - latter stages of Championships can be dedicated to Sept, with all club finals over the weekend or two after the All-Ireland
OCT-NOV - running of the provincial club games at all levels, completed mid Nov at latest.

This means we are getting most of the football played by 80% of gaelic players during April-Aug/Sept, so 4-5 months of football, with only the smaller echelons of the successful elite playing during the Autumn and then back in the spring time, kicking off the new season.

Are these drastic? I dont think so and the demands of the modern gaelic players are ten fold, with clubs, counties, schools, colleges etc, I think there needs to be some action taken to reduce the number of games.

Dont get me wrong, there are gonna be some flaws in this, its just something that I thought about since this thread popped up and seeing the pictures on TV of committed GAA players battling through the mud, wind and rain in pursuit of titles, glory and history... something is badly wrong