Club championship shambles..again

[Zulu]

It's utter nonsense AZ. You're involved in coaching at IC level and you played at a high level too. I'm sure you'll agree that the joy in playing or coaching is mainly derived from the sense of sharing a journey with 20-30 other people. You train X amount of times per week to develop a team which will play X amount of games on certain dates and hopefully you get rewarded by winning more often than losing.

I love being involved in football teams (as a player or coach) but I'm not sure I'd be interested in getting involved with anything bar a senior IC team or a club underage team in Ireland because they are the only teams that have some structure to their season. How can the GAA continue to be strong when when people who are passionate it and want to be involved don't know what their season is going to be like because of an IC season that isn't structured well enough. Aidan Walsh has decided he can't do the dual thing now when he should never have been given the choice by the GAA in the first place.

[AZOffaly]

It's utter nonsense AZ. You're involved in coaching at IC level and you played at a high level too. I'm sure you'll agree that the joy in playing or coaching is mainly derived from the sense of sharing a journey with 20-30 other people. You train X amount of times per week to develop a team which will play X amount of games on certain dates and hopefully you get rewarded by winning more often than losing.

I love being involved in football teams (as a player or coach) but I'm not sure I'd be interested in getting involved with anything bar a senior IC team or a club underage team in Ireland because they are the only teams that have some structure to their season. How can the GAA continue to be strong when when people who are passionate it and want to be involved don't know what their season is going to be like because of an IC season that isn't structured well enough. Aidan Walsh has decided he can't do the dual thing now when he should never have been given the choice by the GAA in the first place.

Yes. From a selfish perspective, you want to be able to do what you want, with your full squad, when you want to.

[Zulu]

But that's not selfish AZ, that's pretty much what soccer and rugby teams of junior D standard have as a minimum. We're not even offering that to our elite level teams bar senior IC, and even then Wexford had U21 and senior championship games on the same week this summer. Jarlath Burns wrote a well received article in the Gaelic Life a few months back basically saying the GAA season was a madness that worked but he was talking utter rubbish. It doesn't work and won't be acceptable to future generations. Why don't we start to address it before we are told to stick our haphazard season where the sun don't shine?

[Rossfan]

A player should only be able to be on one panel at any given time for Inter County. To reduce the number of possible crossover players I'd favour reducing Minor to 17 and U21 to U20.
In addition - no Minor allowed to play adult championship at club level or if he does he loses minor eligibility.
Only a start - then start on County and Club calendars.
I suspect "HQ" want the All Ireland closing stages dragged out because it keeps GAA games in the forefront in the media from late July till near the end of September. so that will probably continue. As for the dragged out Provinvial campaigns - this is where the first clampdown is required. But sure we already abolished extra time so 3 weeks have to be left between Rounds
Surely if we go with a 3 week cycle then there should be one of the weeks for Club only. IC managers will still have plenty of time to prepare for the next County game.
This needs a serious Committee set up by HQ to examine the whole structure/timing/eligibilities etc - not the bits of piecemeal stand alone things we've had in recent times e.g "Club Competitions incl the AIs to be completed in the calendar year" , then we had " Stick prelim Round losers in Leinster and Ulster into Connacht and Munster".
Joined up thinking pleeeaaaase.

[manfromdelmonte]

Solution is to play more club championship games earlier in the year, then have a break and play the county leagues and then have the last round or two and knockout rounds at end of august and into Sept. That would give all club players a regular fixture list of games during the summer months.

Would be a very simple solution in most counties, but probably is too sensible

[Zulu]

Not sure I'd agree it's sensible. If I follow you correctly, you're saying play some of your championship games early in the season, which means you'd be back training pre-Christmas, then have a few months break for less competitive games and then back for the real deal stuff in August/September. I wouldn't much fancy that as a player or manager I don't think and I doubt it would work in dual counties. I think you could debate the exact structure of club and county seasons until the cows come home but as long as people start thinking about it as a season and not as the football championship, the hurling league, the clubs or the county. It's all linked and we have to consider the impact of changes to one on the others. When you that, the logic of breaking the links between some of them becomes apparent.

[manfromdelmonte]

It would be far easier to train for that, than games spread out haphazardly across the summer or crammed into the final few weeks of August and into September.

Plus much easier for lads to plan their holidays

[Farrandeelin]

What about separating the county players from the club players when the counties are still in the championship and let counties finish their leagues anyway, and possibly championships? I know all hell would break loose, but something has got to give.

[twohands!!!]

One thing that can easily be done to help with fixtures congestion is getting rid of the interprovincials competition.

It's clear that despite all the various efforts by some in the GAA that the competition is stone dead in terms of public interest.

To add insult to injury the 2 semi-finals and finals take up 2 weekends which is a seriously poor allocation of resources.

With squads made of of top players in both codes, I'd imagine that letting these intercounty players go back to their clubs as opposed to dragging them off to take part in games would make life a fair bit easier for those scheduling club fixtures.

I also don't buy the notion that it's something of huge value to the players when it was one of the 2 competitions along with the McGrath Cup that the footballers from Tipperary, Clare, Limerick, and Waterford were quite happy to boycott this year as part of their dispute over the seedings in the Munster championship.

The fixtures calendar is already packed enough without these meaningless exhibition games. Get rid of it now.

[orangeman]

Aogan O'Fearaill says that his time in office will be about fixtures and the Gaa season, is quoted as saying that the Gaa fixture plan as it currently exists needs to be broken down to the very core and rebuilt again.

Let's hope he goes some way to doing this.

[ck]

Would agree with most if not all of the suggestions here, the main thing is that something needs to happen! It's currently a mess and the anti change brigade have allowed it to get to this. I would suggest the following.

* Scrap U.21's at all levels
* Replace U.18 with U.19 but still call it "Minor"
* Colleges play before Christmas only
* Scrap FBD, McGrath, McKenna Cups
* Start "COUNTY SEASON" with NFL in Jan and run till March
* Railway Cup on St.Patricks Day with significant promotional investment
* Start Provincial C'ships in April with All-Ireland Finals in June/July
* Start "CLUB SEASON" in May/June with leagues and C/ship concluding in Sept/Oct
* Provincial clubs to conclude in Nov and All-Ireland Club to conclude pre Christmas

Clauses
* If a minor plays Co.Senior he is then ineligible to play minor
* County teams cannot select club or college players for pre season until their season are over
* Every county adheres to the above structure and county managers are not allowed to dictate fixtures (like Donegal)

[muppet]

Would agree with most if not all of the suggestions here, the main thing is that something needs to happen! It's currently a mess and the anti change brigade have allowed it to get to this. I would suggest the following.

* Scrap U.21's at all levels
* Replace U.18 with U.19 but still call it "Minor"
* Colleges play before Christmas only
* Scrap FBD, McGrath, McKenna Cups
* Start "COUNTY SEASON" with NFL in Jan and run till March
* Railway Cup on St.Patricks Day with significant promotional investment
* Start Provincial C'ships in April with All-Ireland Finals in June/July
* Start "CLUB SEASON" in May/June with leagues and C/ship concluding in Sept/Oct
* Provincial clubs to conclude in Nov and All-Ireland Club to conclude pre Christmas

Clauses
* If a minor plays Co.Senior he is then ineligible to play minor
* County teams cannot select club or college players for pre season until their season are over
* Every county adheres to the above structure and county managers are not allowed to dictate fixtures (like Donegal)

Scrapping U-21 is not a good idea, but banning players who have played Senior IC might not be a bad idea.
Most of the rest I agree with.

We need to merge the League and the Championship (how is another debate altogether), and get the best of both worlds while reducing the number of weekends used by both in their current separate format.. The League takes club players from their clubs because it needs a relatively large number of games while the Championship interferes with clubs in the usually successful counties' and those that go on a good run. Both of those are fairly unpredictable from a fixtures pov.

[blewuporstuffed]

Would agree with most if not all of the suggestions here, the main thing is that something needs to happen! It's currently a mess and the anti change brigade have allowed it to get to this. I would suggest the following.

* Scrap U.21's at all levels
* Replace U.18 with U.19 but still call it "Minor"
* Colleges play before Christmas only
* Scrap FBD, McGrath, McKenna Cups
* Start "COUNTY SEASON" with NFL in Jan and run till March
* Railway Cup on St.Patricks Day with significant promotional investment
* Start Provincial C'ships in April with All-Ireland Finals in June/July
* Start "CLUB SEASON" in May/June with leagues and C/ship concluding in Sept/Oct
* Provincial clubs to conclude in Nov and All-Ireland Club to conclude pre Christmas

Clauses
* If a minor plays Co.Senior he is then ineligible to play minor
* County teams cannot select club or college players for pre season until their season are over
* Every county adheres to the above structure and county managers are not allowed to dictate fixtures (like Donegal)

Scrapping U-21 is not a good idea, but banning players who have played Senior IC might not be a bad idea.
Most of the rest I agree with.

We need to merge the League and the Championship (how is another debate altogether), and get the best of both worlds while reducing the number of weekends used by both in their current separate format.. The League takes club players from their clubs because it needs a relatively large number of games while the Championship interferes with clubs in the usually successful counties' and those that go on a good run. Both of those are fairly unpredictable from a fixtures pov.

i woudl agree with what most of youa re saying.
I think muppets suggestion of  banning players on the senior squad from the u21s is a good idea also.

[The Trap]

Its very clear that something radical has to be done and hopefully the new president is the man to do it. But when is this going to happen? Fixtures have already been made for next year, if something was going to change for say 2016 would counties need to know now in case league performance could have a bearing?
The further this can is kicked down the road the more players we are going to lose to other codes, the more bitterness is going to build in the club v county debate, more liberties are going to be taken by inter county managers and the mess is going to be harder to solve!
This is the REAL problem for the GAA.
Just one more thing though. How many recently retired inter-county players bring these sort of issues up in their columns? Could they not see the harm being done to THEIR clubs when they were away with the county all year? To give them the benefit of the doubt players play, managers manage, and adminsitrators administrate....so it up to Croke Park to come up with a solution QUICKLY.

[muppet]

Its very clear that something radical has to be done and hopefully the new president is the man to do it. But when is this going to happen? Fixtures have already been made for next year, if something was going to change for say 2016 would counties need to know now in case league performance could have a bearing?
The further this can is kicked down the road the more players we are going to lose to other codes, the more bitterness is going to build in the club v county debate, more liberties are going to be taken by inter county managers and the mess is going to be harder to solve!
This is the REAL problem for the GAA.
Just one more thing though. How many recently retired inter-county players bring these sort of issues up in their columns? Could they not see the harm being done to THEIR clubs when they were away with the county all year? To give them the benefit of the doubt players play, managers manage, and adminsitrators administrate....so it up to Croke Park to come up with a solution QUICKLY.

Good point. We should have club-only columnists as well, for balance like.