Can club GAA and county GAA co-exist in the current climate?

[SpeculativeEffort]

Should county players only play county so that club players can actually have a proper fixtures schedule?

Should county boards enforce the 13 day rule and stop holding county football/hurling above everything else?

Should we go to a league format at county level so that we can produce a proper fixture list in before the season begins instead of waiting on qualifier results etc.?

Should the All-Ireland be played earlier (end of July?) so that club fixtures can be played in decent conditions in August and September?

What club scene will we have in 20 years time if we keep heading the direction we are going?

Will club players ever get to have proper set of games between April and September?

[Green Fields]

No
No
No
No
The same.
No

[SpeculativeEffort]

So all is rosey in the garden then GreenField?

[theskull1]

Are you only going to ask questions or have you anything meaningful to say on the subject?

[Green Fields]

So all is rosey in the garden then GreenField?

No but it is what it is, next question?

[SpeculativeEffort]

I'll tell you what I think.

I think the club player is the most neglected shareholder in the GAA currently.

I think the county player and manager rules the roost. The county player plays in summer time, he plays in front of big crowds and the club games are postponed so he doesn't miss anything.

The club player waits around all summer. Does a heap of training. Plays the odd meaningless game on a fine evening. Waits patiently for the county player
to return. Plays all the important games with a few weeks from September onward.

I'm asking questions because I believe there should be change. What do you think?

[Captain Scarlet]

Well as it stands there is no club scene for the most of the year and when the sun is shining and the ground is hard there is practically no real games. In Kilkenny they run a league/ championship whereby there are groups with matches on during the season.
Last year after the Leinster Final and AI semi there was club championship. It doesn't seem to be doing them any harm but other counties don't seem too keen on any system whereby the county men are released.

[theskull1]

The first question you asked blew your ideas of change out of the water for me.

An honest look at how the GAA infrastructure has ballooned over the past 20/25 years and question whether the need for revenue to maintain that infrastructure (both people and concrete) is very much part of County vs Club frictions.

Of course this would be a turkey's voting for Christmas scenario, so will never happen unless clubs reach breaking point. Until then it is what it is.

[deiseach]

I was talking to my brother about this over the weekend. He was heavily involved in our club once upon a time, and his insight based on that is that clubs will do anything to avoid playing a game if they are not at what they perceive to be full strength. He quoted the example, which I'm sure I've mentioned before but bears repeating, of how Gaultier managed to secure a postponement of a Minor football match with Tramore because Paul Flynn was playing for the county Minor hurlers. Saddos The eagle-eyed will have noticed that Paul Flynn played for Ballygunner. But Ballygunner is a hurling-only club and anyone who wants to play football generally does so with Gaultier, a football-only club. Now, Paul Flynn was not playing football for Gaultier, but he might have done, and on that basis the postponement was approved! I use this example from a long time ago (1992) not to pick on Gaultier but to illustrate that no amount of master fixture lists or edicts from Croke Park can resolve a mess where clubs are only too eager to perpetuate that mess.