This is gas stuff altogether.
Without that clubs work Walsh isn’t the player he is today.
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At what stage of the year did that transfer go ahead?
It’s the optics here with Walsh & Crokes carelessly doing this a week after an AI & weeks before the Dublin club championships kick off.
Kinda fuck you to the lot attitudes.
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How do you know the crowds at club matches when you attended none this weekend and their was also none on tv? 2 matches i was at at well over a thousand people.
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Not that I noticed anyway
I would let Walsh off anyway. That club in Tipperary has survived losing 5 of its best players. If he wants to go let him off.
Crokes told Shane that Hibernia South Dublin was like Blue Mountain State and he needed to be there.
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Loads of rugby clubs are the same they are District rather than town teams… If your asking me how many blow ins they have from other clubs in tipp… I don’t know at this point I would be removed from them a bit the lads I’d know are gone past it
Rockwell a big help to cashel I suppose
Went through in the off season over Xmas time in say a few weeks after he left the cork set up
Any of the Kanturk gaa team play rugby? Big boys.
That alone makes it far more palatable
No
Not many ‘Cashel’ lads on the Cashel hurling team either.
Depends where you’re sitting I spose
There cant be many bigger club teams around. Lot of them have filling out to do yet. The father of the five is a massive man
It’s a tough one. People saying can he not travel back and he would do it 3 or 4 times a week for the county. Maybe it gets to the point that doing that for 12 months of the year takes its toll. And its all well and good saying to only travel back for games, but really, that doesnt work either. He’d get his costs at county level, but not club. And if he is only on placement, its not like he’ll be earning a shit load, having to live in Dublin and travel 3 times a week back to Galway would be fairly costly.
The timing is all wrong with it really being a big issue. It could have waited til next year really, or at least be sorted earlier than now. Maybe he was waiting til Galway were out but going so long fecked him up.
Shane actually has family involvement with Brigids and Judes, not even sure if the clubs themselves know it.
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Shane Walsh saga shows why GAA need to take tougher stance on Dublin clubs’ import deals
Breheny Beat
Shane Walsh: ‘The pride of Kilkerrin and Clonberne for people of all ages and an absolute god for the younger generation.’ Photo: Sportsfile
August 02 2022 08:13 PM
First, a declaration of interest in the case of Shane Walsh and his proposed switch from Kilkerrin-Clonberne to Kilmacud Crokes.
Kilkerrin-Clonberne is my home club, where I played for many years (it’s no surprise they remained junior for so long!) and also served as secretary prior to moving to Dublin in 1979.
It’s a much more vibrant and successful club on and off the pitch nowadays, thanks to the enterprise of so many people who have done extraordinary work.
The ladies team are All-Ireland champions while the men’s team are priming for a shot at the Galway intermediate championship. With Shane Walsh aboard, they would have a chance of being successful.
That’s not the only reason they were devastated when they heard last Saturday that a move to Kilmacud is on the cards for their star man. Walsh is actually more than that in Kilkerrin-Clonberne. He’s the pride of the joint-parishes for people of all ages and an absolute god for the younger generation.
Kids as young as five or six are trying to run like him, kick like him, hoping that one day they will play like him. It’s a GAA story from the ages – especially in a small club – the local hero, who not only makes the county team but brings once-in-a-generation quality.
Losing him would be utterly deflating for the club. Losing him to a Dublin super-club, just as the Galway championship is about to start, makes it all the worse. It’s the ultimate sickener.
This is where emotion meets reality and comes away disappointed. Emotion demands that Walsh remains with his home club. It takes nothing into account only the pride of having him in their red jersey and a belief that his super talents belong to them. It’s all very understandable.
Reality, although tough to take, is different. If Walsh, who is based in Dublin, wants to play for a club in the capital, he is entitled to do so. GAA players are not under contract, except perhaps in a loyalty sense.
Nobody has the right to question their motives for changing clubs. They are free agents, in so far as the GAA rules on eligibility allow.
Now, that’s where the crux arises, one that the GAA is not addressing. In the country, a player must play for his home club unless he can prove that he has moved to the catchment area of another club.
It’s different in Dublin, where there is no parish rule. For obvious reasons, there can’t be, as it would be impossible to apply distinct boundaries in an area with a population of 1.3 million.
A top player moving from the country to Dublin has a pick of clubs and, inevitably, the bigger ones are more attractive targets. They’re clever at making themselves appealing, whether with the carrot of likely success or inducements.
Not that there’s any suggestion of anything like this happening Walsh’s case, or that he is benefiting in any way from the proposed move, as he is already based in Dublin where he is continuing his studies.
But yes, it happens, sometimes in the form of free accommodation, sometimes with a wallet of notes. Naturally, you won’t find details of these transactions in the accounts.
Croke Park know that but, as the rules stand, are unable to do anything about what is a clear violation of the amateur rules. There can be no case without evidence and it’s never forthcoming. That’s the official position on why it’s never investigated.
Frankly, such a weak response is not good enough. In the absence of any way of tracking down illegal inducements, some imaginative thinking is needed.
Here’s an example. Instead of allowing a player from the country to join any club he wishes in Dublin, why not have a list of options which do not include the main powers? There are many clubs in Dublin who lack the commercial clout to ‘incentivise’ potential recruits. They would benefit from gaining fresh talent while the players involved got a new club.
That’s assuming, of course, that they were as committed to switching as if they were joining a wealthy club. One suspects that might not always be the case, especially for the big names who find the path to super-clubs dotted with goodies.
And who can blame players if their talents yield financial rewards, directly or indirectly? Loyalty is fine, but there’s a real world too where bills have to be paid and if others are prepared to settle some, it’s naïve to expect players to turn them down.
Read More
- Conor McKeon: Galway star Shane Walsh is not the first to move clubs … and won’t be the last either
- The off-season fix: 10 areas that the GAA needs to address before inter-county action returns next year
It’s back then to Croke Park and their responsibilities. Allowing star imports to join large Dublin clubs, which already draw from massive catchment areas, is wrong on a number of fronts.
It makes the strong even stronger which, in turn, makes them ever more attractive to new arrivals. And so the cycle continues.
The GAA are very strict on club eligibility throughout the country. Rightly so, because otherwise there would be anarchy.
So why such loose regulations in Dublin, relating to players moving from the country? Don’t blame the players, who are entitled to best serve their own interests, or the super-clubs, who have similar motivation.
Instead, blame a faulty transfer system which, for some strange reason, Croke Park continues to accept. In another context, GAA president Larry McCarthy wrote in the All-Ireland final programme of bringing ‘certainty and stability to the club structure’.
Try telling Kilkerrin-Clonberne that’s working for them right now.
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Shane Walsh would have come through at any club, it just happened to be that one.
The unfortunate truth is some areas do not have the population to sustain a club and have to amalgamate with other/s.
This has always been the case.
I’m guessing Kilberrin-Clonberne would have been an amalgamation in the first place?
You’re being far too sensible.
I’d still rather @TreatyStones solution however, that he sit down with the club and discuss what could work and try help him work out a solution to stay with his home club. Find out what the long term employment is and if it is only temporary, then he only needs to get through a couple of months club action and then see where things go. An intermediate club losing a star player like that is massively demoralising, and its the quickness of it that is what makes it worse. Plenty of players have transferred and you’d hear nothing of it, but coming on the eve of the club championship and after he starred in the AI final has just ensured it would be a much bigger reaction than normal.
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On the radio tonight they said the GGA club he plays for it described what happened as being like a deatg in the parish,
Thats unacceptable for them to say, they need to give their head a wobble