Hard to compete with Donegal’s professionalism and money, bad for the game?

[INDIANA]

Donaghy taking time off too to concentrate on football!!!, took the Ulster bank severance they were offering to staff.

http://www.independent.ie/sport/gaelic-games/gaelic-football/kerry-captain-kieran-donaghy-packs-in-job-to-concentrate-on-football-31217940.html

However, the examples above, this is more a case of someone taking the package now and not over exerting themselves to get a new job for a few months. Other people will take the package from Ulster bank and go travelling over the summer before getting their next job.

Will you stop the lights. This is professional football - nothing else .as I said 60 hours a week

[Franko]

Donaghy taking time off too to concentrate on football!!!, took the Ulster bank severance they were offering to staff.

http://www.independent.ie/sport/gaelic-games/gaelic-football/kerry-captain-kieran-donaghy-packs-in-job-to-concentrate-on-football-31217940.html

However, the examples above, this is more a case of someone taking the package now and not over exerting themselves to get a new job for a few months. Other people will take the package from Ulster bank and go travelling over the summer before getting their next job.

Not a married 31 year old with a child on the way.

[BluestackBoy]

Very simple you condense the season.

Instead of it being a 9 month season it becomes a 4-5 month season- then all of a sudden the landscape changes. You define when inter county teams can go into training and you define the club season. All of a sudden county players become functioning members of society again. Its a very simple solution and one that is 100% guaranteed to work.

Explain to me how a 4 - 5 month county season works.

Besides which many clubs are putting in the same amount of work now as county teams

Two seperate championship seasons kid.

Club players get a defined season, can plan holidays etc. Don't need county players for club league unless the county manager wants it- in the case of players returning from injury etc. 90% of clubs finished by end of Sept.

County players get un-interrupted access to county commitments , play the club championship with their club and still can have 2 months lying on a beach if they so wish.

Everyone's a winner.

Under this system would county players play in county league, co championship & club championship only?

[rosnarun]

as i posted before .
I think a lot of these guys going full time is a nice way of putting Redundancy.
Lacey o sullavan holmes and now Donaghy have all left the ulster bank, the bank has commited to over 100 redundancies in this 12 months.
So with a fat cheque in their pockets and probably a good deal on thier mortgate who would plame them for taking a few months off to play ball.
If donaghy seriously wanted to become a full time athelte he would have started long before 31 same with lacey and Osullivan

[INDIANA]

as i posted before .
I think a lot of these guys going full time is a nice way of putting Redundancy.
Lacey o sullavan holmes and now Donaghy have all left the ulster bank, the bank has commited to over 100 redundancies in this 12 months.
So with a fat cheque in their pockets and probably a good deal on thier mortgate who would plame them for taking a few months off to play ball.
If donaghy seriously wanted to become a full time athelte he would have started long before 31 same with lacey and Osullivan

No he wouldn't because the demands now are twice what they were 6-7 years ago so you're completely wrong on that . I'm very surprised that many posters here have no idea of what's demanded to play county football these days

An association in absolute chaos

[BluestackBoy]

as i posted before .
I think a lot of these guys going full time is a nice way of putting Redundancy.
Lacey o sullavan holmes and now Donaghy have all left the ulster bank, the bank has commited to over 100 redundancies in this 12 months.
So with a fat cheque in their pockets and probably a good deal on thier mortgate who would plame them for taking a few months off to play ball.
If donaghy seriously wanted to become a full time athelte he would have started long before 31 same with lacey and Osullivan

No he wouldn't because the demands now are twice what they were 6-7 years ago so you're completely wrong on that . I'm very surprised that many posters here have no idea of what's demanded to play county football these days

An association in absolute chaos

I don't understand how a few players taking some time out from work signifies "an association in absolute chaos".

Slightly hyperbolic maybe???

[screenexile]

as i posted before .
I think a lot of these guys going full time is a nice way of putting Redundancy.
Lacey o sullavan holmes and now Donaghy have all left the ulster bank, the bank has commited to over 100 redundancies in this 12 months.
So with a fat cheque in their pockets and probably a good deal on thier mortgate who would plame them for taking a few months off to play ball.
If donaghy seriously wanted to become a full time athelte he would have started long before 31 same with lacey and Osullivan

No he wouldn't because the demands now are twice what they were 6-7 years ago so you're completely wrong on that . I'm very surprised that many posters here have no idea of what's demanded to play county football these days

An association in absolute chaos

I don't understand how a few players taking some time out from work signifies "an association in absolute chaos".

Slightly hyperbolic maybe???

I think the people taking time out of work is a symptom of the Association in chaos. . . the demands being put on Inter County players would be the root cause of the association being in chaos!

When Indiana says lads are spending 60 hours a week training for Inter County football do you think 60 hours is not an exorbitant amount of time to be training or do you think this is an exaggeration and not really true?

[sheamy]

The association isn't in crisis but the GAA don't help themselves here.

The event Karl Lacey said that stuff at was the launch of the Kellogg's Cul Camps. He will more than likely have been paid a four figure sum for that by the GAA who have a duty to promote their sponsor.

If a player does a couple of those a month, then who needs to work for the summer ?

It's catch 22. The GAA have full time people whose job it is to promote the association and they need players to do that so they pay a select few of them from time to time. That gives lads an insight into what it would be like to be full time and make money from endorsements. It's nothing new really but it's more frequent and professional now with the GPA influence.

Make no mistake, the day of counties organising 'work' schedules for their intercounty squads and training professionally is already here. When there is such large amounts of money going to big counties in sponsorship, it's inevitable.

[twohands!!!]

Bank officials don't make me laugh. They do practically nothing. Could list several.

Indiana - riddle me this?  - if bank officials do practically nothing anyway, why would the lads need to leave Ulster Bank at all?

[rosnarun]

as i posted before .
I think a lot of these guys going full time is a nice way of putting Redundancy.
Lacey o sullavan holmes and now Donaghy have all left the ulster bank, the bank has commited to over 100 redundancies in this 12 months.
So with a fat cheque in their pockets and probably a good deal on thier mortgate who would plame them for taking a few months off to play ball.
If donaghy seriously wanted to become a full time athelte he would have started long before 31 same with lacey and Osullivan

No he wouldn't because the demands now are twice what they were 6-7 years ago so you're completely wrong on that . I'm very surprised that many posters here have no idea of what's demanded to play county football these days

An association in absolute chaos

so what your saying it makes more sense  for a married father - with 1 maybe 2years left to give up his job  than it would for the same player  to have done so 6 or 7 years ago. 6 or 7 years ago donaghy was also playing top level BB  as well as football.
if it wasnt for the wife he wouldndn't know what to do with himself now.
can you name aany other player who have gone 'full time' who arent just out of college students or ex bankers?

[snoopdog]

I would say Lacey and Donaghy have been offered voluntary Redundancy and like a lot of people if your working for a financial institution in the south for a good period of time they could be getting a years wages so its a matter of taking a few months off and concentratring on football. Come september those 2 boys will have a new job and still have a hefty sum of their redundancy left over.

[macdanger2]

Very simple you condense the season.

Instead of it being a 9 month season it becomes a 4-5 month season- then all of a sudden the landscape changes. You define when inter county teams can go into training and you define the club season. All of a sudden county players become functioning members of society again. Its a very simple solution and one that is 100% guaranteed to work.

Explain to me how a 4 - 5 month county season works.

Besides which many clubs are putting in the same amount of work now as county teams

The Ulster Championship currently takes I think 10/11 weeks to play 8 matches. All first round games at the same time would save at least 3 weeks. Both Semis on the same day as well and bring the final forward a week saves another 2/3 weeks. The whole thing run off in 5 weeks saves a month and a half right off the bat.

Club players train like County teams 10 years ago Id say which is still mental but in terms of County teams they don't have as many games as clubs so train a lot more! Yes the Club game has increased its workload but I don't think the ordinary man appreciates what goes into a Tyrone/Armagh/Donegal/Dublin/Mayo/Kerry regime. Indiana is not exaggerating its 60 hours minimum a week and Football is way above family/work life!!

Having a defined club and county season would be a massive improvement, would be much fairer on club players

[BluestackBoy]

as i posted before .
I think a lot of these guys going full time is a nice way of putting Redundancy.
Lacey o sullavan holmes and now Donaghy have all left the ulster bank, the bank has commited to over 100 redundancies in this 12 months.
So with a fat cheque in their pockets and probably a good deal on thier mortgate who would plame them for taking a few months off to play ball.
If donaghy seriously wanted to become a full time athelte he would have started long before 31 same with lacey and Osullivan

No he wouldn't because the demands now are twice what they were 6-7 years ago so you're completely wrong on that . I'm very surprised that many posters here have no idea of what's demanded to play county football these days

An association in absolute chaos

I don't understand how a few players taking some time out from work signifies "an association in absolute chaos".

Slightly hyperbolic maybe???

I think the people taking time out of work is a symptom of the Association in chaos. . . the demands being put on Inter County players would be the root cause of the association being in chaos!

When Indiana says lads are spending 60 hours a week training for Inter County football do you think 60 hours is not an exorbitant amount of time to be training or do you think this is an exaggeration and not really true?

It's a total exaggeration.

Nobody in the GAA is training 60 hours a week, or 10 hours a day leaving Sundays out of it, for the very simple reason that it would be totally counter productive. Rest is as important as training.

To be doing 60 hours a week, not to mention travelling, then none of them could work in any way shape or form, there wouldn't be enough hours in the week.

[screenexile]

as i posted before .
I think a lot of these guys going full time is a nice way of putting Redundancy.
Lacey o sullavan holmes and now Donaghy have all left the ulster bank, the bank has commited to over 100 redundancies in this 12 months.
So with a fat cheque in their pockets and probably a good deal on thier mortgate who would plame them for taking a few months off to play ball.
If donaghy seriously wanted to become a full time athelte he would have started long before 31 same with lacey and Osullivan

No he wouldn't because the demands now are twice what they were 6-7 years ago so you're completely wrong on that . I'm very surprised that many posters here have no idea of what's demanded to play county football these days

An association in absolute chaos

I don't understand how a few players taking some time out from work signifies "an association in absolute chaos".

Slightly hyperbolic maybe???

I think the people taking time out of work is a symptom of the Association in chaos. . . the demands being put on Inter County players would be the root cause of the association being in chaos!

When Indiana says lads are spending 60 hours a week training for Inter County football do you think 60 hours is not an exorbitant amount of time to be training or do you think this is an exaggeration and not really true?

It's a total exaggeration.

Nobody in the GAA is training 60 hours a week, or 10 hours a day leaving Sundays out of it, for the very simple reason that it would be totally counter productive. Rest is as important as training.

To be doing 60 hours a week, not to mention travelling, then none of them could work in any way shape or form, there wouldn't be enough hours in the week.

They're not physically training 60 hours a week!! With the way tactics and video analysis is these days you're talking at least half of the 60 being on that as well as the fact inter county athletes are expected to put in serious time for stretching/recover as well outside of the actual physical training!!

[Keyser soze]

Indiana is fond of coming on and making grand statements about things like guys training 60 hours a week, or demands on county players doubling over the last 7 years. He never has any evidence, let alone proof, to offer for any of this. Complete spoofer.