against the breeze - paddy heaney

[goldenyears]

Playing is paramount to GAA 
AGAINST THE BREEZE 
by Paddy Heaney 

Last Friday evening when the referee blew the long whistle our senior team walked off the pitch having played its 22nd league game of the season.

The league started on Friday April 13, and with the exception of a fortnight's break in July, we have averaged approximately a game per week. We've also played two championship games.

Many club players reading this will be green with envy. The Down County Board deserves due praise for this excellent programme of fixtures. It's easier to keep players interested when there is a game to look forward to every weekend.

This partly explains why the average age of our team is about 59. Why retire when it's so much fun?

It also helps to explain why we have lost just one player to soccer this season. The individual in question preferred semi-professional soccer – where he would get paid – to an amateur game. Fair enough.


After our league game was over on Friday, I attended a panel-discussion event that was organised by the club in the Wellington Park Hotel. Meath's Graham Geraghty was the star attraction among the guests who were brave enough to face an audience that had more opinions than the men at the top table.

A wide range of topics was discussed, and perhaps chief among them was the state of club football and hurling.

A club footballer from Armagh revealed that he had gone six weeks without a single game. An Antrim club footballer complained that he had played 10 league games since the season started in March – that's one game every fortnight.

Not surprisingly, neither individual was satisfied with this situation. Neither was the Down man who voiced discontent with the state of the county's underage fixtures.

A separate argument concerning the conflict between hurling and football veered into the same arena.

While opinions varied, there was universal agreement that the best way to promote Gaelic Games is to actually play Gaelic Games.

This may seem blindingly obvious, but the complexities of dual-counties, the demands of inter-county managers, and the silly conventions of the GAA, are making it incredibly difficult for county boards to fulfil their primary purpose, which is to PROMOTE the games.

While it's normally the remit of this column to just whinge and moan, for today, and today only, Against The Breeze is going to provide a list of suggestions the GAA must take on board if it is serious about looking after the humble club player.

First and foremost, the GAA must scrap replays. Greed is the only possible reason why they continue to exist – and this is unacceptable when the Association has over E30m in the bank.

Eight senior club games in Laois were postponed last week because the county's minors drew with Derry in the All-Ireland minor semi-final. An equally unpalatable situation arose in Derry when James Kielt played for his club just three days before the minor replay.

Fortunately, Kielt came through unscathed and was selected as the official 'man of the match'

in Saturday's replay. Had the

Derry minor captain been injured, the result of the game could have different.

Kielt wouldn't have been put in the predicament of playing three games in six days, and hundreds of club footballers in Laois could have gone ahead with their championship games, if the first game in Croke Park had been played to a finish.

Year after year we hear presidents and county board delegates bleating on about clubs being the 'lifeblood of the Association' – blah blah blah. Their words will continue to ring hollow for as long as replays are played at inter-county level.

The next suggestion will cause some controversy and unrest, but it's a reality that has already been grasped at inter-county level: the day of the dual-player is dead.

The county board that tries to satisfy the dual player ultimately satisfies no-one.

The time has come for players to choose their code or just play either hurling or football whenever it suits. The notion that both codes can

survive in tandem to everyone's satisfaction is ridiculous.

County hurling boards and football boards must run their fixtures independently of each other. By doing this, club footballers and hurlers should be guaranteed a game every week.

In trying to accommodate dual players, county boards are alienating the overwhelming majority of players who concentrate on one code. This is a risky strategy.

Amateur soccer leagues provide their players with a game every Saturday.

Sure, soccer may not offer much competition in places like Crossmaglen and Cushendall – but there is a soccer club on the doorstep of every GAA club in Belfast, Derry city, Newry and beyond.

Providing footballers or hurlers with an unreliable fixtures list isn't exactly the best way to promote either code in the face of such

competition.

Even with the current inter-county League and Championship format, it's still possible for county boards to provide club players with a high volume of games. Down are evidence of this fact.

The final thing the GAA must do is wake up and acknowledge the REAL threat it is facing, rather than a largely imaginary one.

Consider the column inches and opinion that a few underage players going to Australia have generated. Yet, Kevin Dyas and Martin Clarke are just two players. The AFL is not the problem.

Every week, clubs across the country are losing players to amateur soccer leagues. Collingwood are not a threat. The serious problem is allowing a player to go six weeks without a game, in which time he may turn to soccer, or rugby, or drink, or even women.

Graham Geraghty, the guest at Friday's event, received a trial at Arsenal, based on his raw talent. Anthony Tohill spent a week at Manchester United. Neither player had any real experience of playing soccer. If they had spent some time playing in an amateur soccer league, their futures could have been considerably different.

It's time the GAA got wise to the times we live in and started promoted the games in a manner which will allow clubs to cope with the challenges which face them.

[orangeman]

Deifinitely a lot of sense being talked here - but the sad thing is that we  keep on talking about it but we don't do anything about it !!!!!!!!!!

[A Quinn Martin Production]

Heaney makes some fair points here.  I remember in my playing days for a Belfast club the issue of regularity of GAA games vs regularity of soccer games was definitely a big draw for boys to go over to soccer.

[theskull1]

The county board that tries to satisfy the dual player ultimately satisfies no-one.

The time has come for players to choose their code or just play either hurling or football whenever it suits. The notion that both codes can

survive in tandem to everyone's satisfaction is ridiculous.

County hurling boards and football boards must run their fixtures independently of each other. By doing this, club footballers and hurlers should be guaranteed a game every week.

Aye right...Football is the main sport in 90% of clubs in ulster. There currently are plenty of dual clubs keeping hurling alive but just about. Paddy's ideas will kill hurling in most areas of ulster and further beyond which is exactly what he wants. Everyone knows he hates hurling.
Anybody who agrees with these points that Heaney has made couldn't give a fiddlers f**k about hurling

[johnpower]

Heaney makes some fair points here.  I remember in my playing days for a Belfast club the issue of regularity of GAA games vs regularity of soccer games was definitely a big draw for boys to go over to soccer.

Its the same every where do you want passion and commiittment or regular exercise ?.

[clarshack]

good on him - i've always said that replays should be scrapped. just pure greed and a bloody anticlimax as well!

[overcarrying]

I think in Paddys own club there would be pandemonium at under age level if players were asked to pick sides so to speak. Correct me if I am wrong here, but in dual clubs would the majority of the good footballers also be the good hurlers and visa versa? would this not detract from the pool of players from each code and possibly, as Skull1 states, ruin hurling in some clubs, or maybe even football?

[darbyo]

Aye right...Football is the main sport in 90% of clubs in ulster. There currently are plenty of dual clubs keeping hurling alive but just about. Paddy's ideas will kill hurling in most areas of ulster and further beyond which is exactly what he wants. Everyone knows he hates hurling.
Anybody who agrees with these points that Heaney has made couldn't give a fiddlers f**k about hurling

Don't know what Paddy's views on hurling are but in the clubs that I'm familiar with one code would have to be dropped if players had to choose. Most clubs I'd imagine don't have 50-60 adult players with at least 15 that would pick football and another 15 that would pick hurling. I reckon in football counties hurling would die out and in hurling counties football would die out. Imagine the war for hearts and minds that would go on at underage level if club mentors knew that by senior the players would have to choose one code, it would split clubs in two and the only winners in such a siituation would be other sports.