At what appears to be very short notice
We don’t know when this was communicated to his club. To be fair, it sounds like he did do this a while back and they were hoping he would change his mind.
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The gaa have been pushing professionalism at every opportunity. It’s seen as a good thing but in reality it’s not good for an amateur sport.
The money involved, the
Time involved, the underage academies, the preparation involved, the pricing of the games,the sky sports deal, the structures of the championship etc. it is all based on trying to copy professional sports.
Once this idea gets going there is no ending. Lads who want to prosper and benefit from professional sets up aren’t going to stay playing intermediate football in the middle of no where when they have little or no connection to the area.
Thanks to the split season the county game has even more opportunity to dominate and become even more “professional”.
Is there anything to back up the notion that young lads don’t have any connection to the place they are from? Maybe I’m sheltered by being a culchie in a GAA mad county but in my experience it couldn’t be further from the truth
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People’s lives can’t be bound by parish rules. If someone’s life or work takes them away then it’s perfectly reasonable for them to want to play on the place where they live. If in time they move back to their parish and play for their own club again that’s great, if they don’t then they were certainly right to play where their life is. You can’t tell anyone where they can and can’t have their life, and sport is part of that.
Hypothetically, if say 3 of na piarsaigs best players moved to cork, dublin etc for college and transferred, you see no issue with this?
Do you really think that’s true? I would say most guys response to anyone blocking them from doing something they want to do is to say fuck you. It’s only likely to create bad feeling. If they allow him go he’s quite likely to return to them in a few years.
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I can’t see any of na piarsaigh’s best three, or any, players wanting to play for a cork or Dublin club team to be quite honest with you. Aside from that, yes it would be highly disappointing, but you have to respect that people’s lives take them elsewhere. You can’t own people. It’s nonsense to think you can. I’d say it’s a pretty big thing for Walsh to request a club move, I’d say he hopes he will move back. How many years has he put into that club I wonder. Fuck sake, appreciate what he’s given them, let him go with a blessing and hopefully he’ll be back in time.
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Again, no one has any issue with lads moving clubs due to work and having to relocate.
However, allowing lads who are in college to move freely opens up the prospect of lads being ‘tapped up’. Young lads being young lads are often short sighted and do not understand the ramnifications of such a move on their club/community.
If you allow college kids to transfer, it will possibly just lead to super clubs and decimate smaller clubs. This is all just conjecture on my behalf.
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He’s 29.
I’ve been in the exact situation.
A player got a notion, looked for a transfer to play with a club where other lads he was friendly with were playing. Player was told we would be objecting, explained why we felt we had to, a couple of weeks passed, the player considered it and decided not to proceed and is now playing away happy out.
It’s very easy for a young lad to get a notion and make what he thinks is a good decision without really considering other aspects to it. Sometimes that needs to be explained. We all did things when we were young when looking back you’d wish someone had explained the bigger picture to you at the time.
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No, and I agree. I have more faith in most than loyalty, but like it or not, the future of most young people reared in a rural enclave, lies away from it, and integration in a new area is greatly enhanced by sport. It makes people happier.
Im referencing college kids being allowed transfer, not specifically the Shane Walsh request. I made it clear, I would let him go if I was his club. I just don’t agree with the request due to wider consequences.
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Again no one has an issue with that.
There is a big difference between transferring to a far away location where you are building a new life and transferring for a few years while you are in college.
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Unless the person prefers the life where they are in college and wants to stay there.
That seems a totally fair reasonable approach and meeting and talking is obviously the best approach. Obviously I don’t know any background but give the few statements that have issued that doesn’t appear to have been what happened with Walsh. If he can’t be persuaded to stay by talking with him then I just can’t see what good can be achieved by trying to block him from doing what he wants to do.
Nobody is forced to play club or intercounty GAA. It’s an amateur sport - at grass roots level at least.
Shane Walsh’s club are in a difficult spot now. You can be guaranteed there are two viewpoints among their Executive and wider club membership - (1) fuck him, we developed him, object, he’s the difference between us maybe winning an intermediate county title or not or (2) he wants to go, leave him off, it’s a killer of a loss but it’ll create bad blood if we stand in his way.
Personally I’d go with Option 2. The damage is done now. By digging in it’ll only create a bigger rift. His friends and neighbours will back him, can only lead to further hassle by not endorsing it.
People are forgetting all the politics that are associated with trying to run a GAA club. If a couple of families get the hump you are down a ball of money in terms of club membership, the local lotto, volunteers to coach teams, people giving of their time to allow the club function (and with shit for thanks). There is always a fallout from contentious decisions, even years later.
I just think it’s an awful situation. He’s content to commute from Dublin to Galway three or four times a week for intercounty but can’t return home to play four or five club championship matches. Nobody is asking him to return home for club training.
A small, rural club and he’s the inspiration for all the kids there. He gives a performance for the ages in an All-Ireland final and a week later he tells his own club he wants out because he’s in college in Dublin. Not working in Dublin but in college up there.
‘But he can play for who he wants’. Not really, this isn’t the Premier League. Rightly or wrongly the parish rule or the various iterations of it have helped GAA to survive all over the country, even in tiny parishes or remote areas. This isn’t an ageing player moving to a new club in his mid to late 30’s and assimilating into his new area, this is one of the best players in the country at the peak of his powers moving club, because he has a chance of winning a club AI.
Leave him off, but this leaves a bad taste IMO.
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Is there anything to be said for another mass?
Is he not entitled to not want to have to commute if he is (maybe) tired of it? It would have been interesting to see what the decision would have been if Galway had won. Worst case scenario, he can do his college time in Dublin and transfer back to his Galway club again down the line? (If he hasn’t gone to an AFL club in the meantime!)
I’d say there is alot going on within his home club as well. I’m fairly sure they have had to amalgamate with Killererin at underage in recent years due to the lack of young people in the parish. Having Shane Walsh around is a great motivation for lads to keep going and to at least maintain their own independence at adult level, but without his attraction keeping other lads who are away from home travelling back there will be a fear of the club just falling apart completely. Their last big intercounty star was John Divilly who also transferred away, but the health of the club was much better 20 years ago so there was no fuss about it. Let Walsh go now without any resistance at all and there may not be a Kilkerrin/Clonberne for him to return to in a few years - even a token resistance could help rally the troops locally.
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