The dates will definetely move forward next year in my opinion. Too many big hitters up in arms. As for under 20, why wasnt it played a month later? Would still be over end of June.
Majority of 18 and 19 year olds on the panel would be sitting their leaving cert in June.
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Spot on, on both counts. I donât have a problem with split season, it is the way to go, but it needs to be moved forward by 4-6 weeks. As Iâve said from the outset, my biggest gripe is the pressure that itâs putting on the younger cohort of players in college and in school at minor level doing end of year exams. I was talking to the father of a Waterford U20 player a few weeks ago who had end of year college exams at 9.30 the morning after he was hurling against Limerick. Thatâs a scenario thatâs replicated no doubt up and down the country in all counties.
Croke Park (like all commercial enterprises) look at the profit line. Thereâs very little buy in to it and theyâre taking a serious hit on gate receipts. Bar Limerick in the Munster Hurling Championship, and an 11,000 full house in Walsh Park for Waterford v Tipperary, attendances have to me looked pretty derisory at just about every other match Iâve seen, both hurling and football.
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Back in the halcyon days, youâd have lads going to watch I/C Under 21 games in shorts and straw hats after a day saving hay/cutting silage.
Looking at Cody and Coach Egan wrapped up in Winter Coats on Monday night was a sorry sight to be honest.
Its been a terrible spectacle of an Inter County season so far.
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Simon?
I doubt he did the leaving cert himself
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I think pushing back the intercounty by just a few weeks would avoid a lot of it. Start the May bank holiday weekend.
Stick the 20s into April and run it off, Saturday - Wednesday if nessecary. Avoiding the other rumbling issue in the GAA
I remember when I played competitive social standard (not an oxymoron), six a side, astro league football your heart rate would be up and your adrenaline would be pumping, especially if @Rocko was after attacking a referee or breaking an opponentâs arm. You might be unable to get to sleep for hours and hours after a nighttime kick-off. I might finally nod off around 4am after replaying in my mind the terrible mistakes I made for the goals conceded or @ClarkeyCat âs self indulgent long range shooting or @Monkey_Allen âs ice-cold finishing or @briantinnion âs similarly proficient finishing but into our own goal. I can only imagine how these youngsters feel heading into important exams at 9.30am the next morning after emptying themselves in provincial grounds the night before and on the back of fitful sleep.
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Variations of these feelings are experienced by all top sportspeople. Andy Robertson was in no mood for sleep after the Champions League final defeat in 2018 and after getting off the plane back to Liverpool stayed up and then went to Homebase on his own on the Sunday morning, bought a barbecue and spent the Sunday setting it up and taking out his aggression by cooking sausages outdoors.
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Provincial Finals in Football this year wont get much of a look in going head to head with the Champions League Final.
What are the fixtures for Saturday June 11th when Scotland come to Dublin for the Nations League? Is it AI Hurling QFâs?
Football Qualifiers Round 2 (the round formerly known as Round 4).
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Do these round robins need to take so long? Only 1 game in Munster the last 2 weekends. Start them a bit later but more condensed
The hurling round robins last from April 17 to May 22. Thatâs six weekends in total with each team playing four matches.
Previously it was teams playing four matches over five weekends but that was changed because in 2018 and 2019 two of the five teams in the Munster round robin ended up having to play four weekends in a row, thus loading the dice against those teams.
The âcondensedâ format has already been tried and does not work. Six weekends is not overkill when each team has to play four matches.
The GAA calendar will always be an absolute cod until such time as competitions are taken out of the calendar altogether.
Everything else is just fannying about trying to keep everyone happy.
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The perfect is the enemy of the good, as they say. There is no perfect and there never will be.
Iâve said it before and Iâll say it again, people donât really want perfection, they want glorious chaos and absurdity, of which there was no better example than the old GAA calendar. They rail against glorious chaos and absurdity, but really, they want it. Glorious chaos and absurdity is exciting and unpredictable, itâs a magical mystery tour of Munster under-21 hurling finals going to extra-time on a Wednesday night in late July or early August and All-Ireland football quarter-final replays on the last Saturday in August, itâs Leinster club football final replays on the last Sunday before Christmas.
The alternative is âlogical, rationalâ chaos and absurdity, which is far worse. âLogical, rationalâ chaos and absurdity is drab. âLogical, rationalâ chaos and absurdity is Leinster hurling round robins played on Saturday afternoons in April with nobody at them and players not being allowed play in an All-Ireland under-20 final because theyâve played senior championship for their county. âLogicâ and ârationalityâ are removing the All-Ireland minor finals from senior final day.
âLogicâ and ârationalityâ dictated the under-21 competition and under-18 competitions became under-20 and under-17 in the first place, and now theyâre not half the competitions they were.
âLogical, rationalâ chaos and absurdity is Fermanagh playing Wicklow in a Tailteann Cup Northern Zone quarter-final on a Saturday afternoon in May with second string teams and 40 people at it. Thatâs the all singing, all dancing âvibrant second tier competitionâ that was promised.
âLogicâ and ârationalityâ in the GAA are the road to a miserable half-existence for the organisation.
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Glorified chaos is 12,000 people travelling across the city on a Wednesday night in October to see Ballymun Kickhams play St. Vincentâs in a Dublin County Semi Final, with the winners playing Judeâs in the final, 4 days later.
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Too true, my electronic friend. I remember traversing the city from my Grand Canal Dock stronghold back in 2014-17 to watch some of these games in the flesh. Iconic. Now I live in Dublin 5, adjacent to the Dublin 3 border, and it wouldnât dawn on me to go to one of them.
Wexford played Longford in this U20 championship in Parnell Park a few weeks ago and I gave it a miss too, despite it being on my doorstep. These U20 and U17 matches are really shit. Ask any senior intercounty player from the 2000-10 or 2010-2020 eras and I almost guarantee you theyâll say the standard was way higher by the end of the either decade compared to the start. There was constant evolution and improvement.
The same would have applied for minor and U21. But shaving off a year has been a dreadful decision. There used to be some cut to these games but this policy decision has actually caused a decline in standards for the first time in nearly 20 years. I donât know if anyone has noticed but the quality of young player coming through in most counties has fallen drastically.
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I used to love your witty anecdotes of going for two pints and the carvery dinner in The 51 post work and then ordering a Taxi Convoy to Parnell Park for some Leinster Under 21 game involving Wexford.
It was a real âWednesday Night Crusadeâ back then. Different times.
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On a point of order, it would have been an early carvery lunch in The 51 followed by a Baileys Coffee & dander back to the office for appearanceâs sake.
Then back down from BOI on Burlington or Mespil Road or Baggot St (depending on the year or unit you worked in) at around 3.30pm.
A few quick pints then before the evening menu commenced at 5pm.
Youâd have the meal deal for âŹ10/âŹ12/âŹ13 (depending on the year and price inflation) and then commandeer a taxi via Hailo or Free Now app or by calling VIP Taxis on the company account (depending on the year), as youâd want to maximise pint drinking time rather than walking to the DART time.
Then hop out as far up the Malahide Road as possible, as close to Donnycarney Church as you can get, & into the match.
A taxi back to 51 afterwards then.
Take 2014, for example, when Wexford beat Dublin in the Leinster U21 hurling final in Parnell Park.
Iâd say we were back in 51 for the second half of the Argentina-Netherlands World Cup semi final.
As Darragh OâSe alluded to today in The Irish Times, these days nobody in their right minds would miss a game like this for some U20 or provincial round robin nonsense.
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Joe Canning: Needless rules put in place by fussy and regimental GAA
GAAâs bizarre rule changes makes things far more difficult than they need to be
Iâve been involved in Gaelic games for most of my life but I still find myself constantly puzzled by the peculiarities within the association.
Everyone knows that the GAA can be fussy and regimental when it comes to rules and regulations. But sometimes itâs the small things that leave a lasting impression.
For instance, why canât a player carry his hurl onto the field on the walk around before a big game? Think about the strangeness of that. You go to play an All-Ireland semi-final in Croke Park, say. Maybe 60,000 people turning up, millions in gate receipts and a nationally televised game.
The teams get to walk the pitch when they arrive. But the players cannot carry their hurl with them. Itâs just not permitted. Iâm not sure why - Iâve never heard an explanation. It is not as though we are going to tear up the pitch.
I know this may seem like a small thing. But we are hurlers at the end of the day, trying to prepare to play our best on a county team in what can be a demanding environment. Why not make things easier for the players rather than more difficult?
I donât know if this has always been the rule. But it has gone that way over the past few years.
And itâs not consistent: it applies to Croke Park and to Semple Stadium in the All-Ireland championship. But thatâs where big championship games are played. What are you going to do - take 10,000 sideline cuts and root up the pitch? It doesnât make sense.
We played Cork in our last league game in 2021 in Pairc Ui Chaoimh - a match that we ultimately won and, subsequently, ended up sharing the title with Kilkenny. When we arrived, the steward was there with the door locked. We werenât allowed to walk on the pitch at all.
So the first time we got to go onto the pitch was for the warm up. Obviously, we werenât very familiar with the surface. You might wear âmouldiesâ or six-stud boots, depending on the day. Yet we couldnât even test the field before we got togged out. What is the reasoning here? We werenât given one in Cork.
We were told to go out onto the Astro turf beforehand. It was just a flat no: you canât go out there until the warm up. It was an odd scenario. And I donât blame the stewards or groundsmen: they were merely acting on orders.
It almost makes you think that there is a group of guys who need to come up with these rules to keep themselves relevant
But it came to my mind while watching the Galway substitutes warming up before the recent championship game against Westmeath. It caught my eye because the fourth official was paying more attention to the fellas warming up than to the game. So letâs say you see three guys running along the sideline - as you will do at all games. For whatever reason, the players are not allowed to warm up with a hurl in their hands.
These limitations are not even a matter of frustration or aggravation for players. You live with them. But they donât make sense. Why canât a player warm up with a hurl in his hands? Why canât substitutes puck a ball around at half time in the definitive championship games?
What can possibly be achieved by preventing a player who might be expected to come cold into a hugely tense, important game from getting his eye in during the half time break?
Baffling
It is a rule for the sake of a rule. It almost makes you think that there is a group of guys who need to come up with these rules to keep themselves relevant. This season, we have seen the odd situation where the Under-20 hurling championship in Munster is played as round-robin while the Leinster equivalent is run off as a straight knock out tournament. I find that baffling.
It has been suggested that the reason for the difference is that Leinster does not have enough floodlit grounds: that apart from Portlaoise and Parnell Park, the options for evening games are limited. If thatâs the case, then it is surely very sad that the development of those hurlers in Leinster has been limited.
What it means is that teams in Munster will potentially play two or three games more than some teams in Leinster. So you have to ask: where is the pathway for development for those Under-20 players in the Leinster counties? Itâs particularly tough given that the weaker teams are more likely to be eliminated in the early rounds. And they are the very teams whose players need as many games as possible.
Most Under-20 teams would have gathered for training before Christmas for what was ultimately a one-game championship season. And because of the rule that you canât play Under-20 if you have represented the county at senior level, it means that these players are essentially cut adrift for a time.
The Munster Under-20 hurling championship is giving young players plenty of games to develop. Photograph: Lorraine OâSullivan/Inpho
They arenât in the senior set up. Under-20 is over and done. They essentially only have club hurling - and the county championship may be deferred because of the All-Ireland senior championship.
In theory, the Under-20/senior rule was put in place as a safeguard against burn out. But in reality it has resulted in a scenario where many Under-20 hurlers are actually under-playing. They arenât getting enough elite games to help them to progress to the level they may wish to reach.
Yes, there was an era where a strong underage player might be called on to play minor, Under-21 (as it was) and senior in the same season. But the revision of minor to Under-17 has removed that age bracket from the equation. And the limitations imposed on the Under-20/senior brackets have put a stop to that.
There have already been instances of Under-20 hurlers getting maybe five minutes or so of senior hurling championship game time and then being ineligible to play for the Under-20s in the championships.
So hurlers at that vital age are caught in a kind of no manâs land. All because certain rules and limitations are put in place with no real thought of the consequences.
Burden
The peculiar thing is that the burden of over-playing has probably moved down the age brackets to 13-16. For years, underage contests were run along Under-14, Under-16 and Under-18 age brackets. Youngsters would play âupâ a year in many cases. But now there are competitions run at every age - Under-13, Under-14, Under-15 and right through to minor.
That works perfectly in the city clubs or a town that has a large population. But to take Portumna, my own club: we are nearly the only club in east Galway that hasnât amalgamated at underage level.
We played an Under-15 Feile tournament game against Athenryrecently. Itâs a big town. All their team belonged to that age bracket. We had to draw from Under-13 and Under-14s just to field a team. So the grading is fine in theory. But I have nephews who are nearly playing every day of the week to try and fill teams. I have one nephew who plays at Under-14, Under-15 and Under-16.
And there are many clubs around Ireland which are much smaller than Portumna and struggle to meet the demands. For instance, Kilimor and Meelick-Eyrecourt have amalgamated at underage level in order to field teams. Mullagh and Kiltormer have done the same. Thatâs four clubs within my locality who have been forced to make a fairly radical decision just to keep developing players.
Keep driving towards Galway city and you begin to encounter the opposite experience. Oranmore, Clarinbridge: these clubs are growing at an extraordinary rate and they have their own problems with 40 kids competing for 15 places. But I sometimes wonder what was wrong with the traditional two-year age brackets of Under-14s, Under-16s and Under-18s. Was there really a need to change it?
It all feeds into a sense that the GAA is in a strange place at the moment. For instance, Iâve known all week that Leinster are playing Toulouse in the Champions Cup this weekend. I know it because I canât really miss it: on the radio, on television, anything sports-related you might read.
Rugby does a brilliant job at marketing itself. I know Galway plays Laois this weekend in the senior hurling championship. But Iâm from Galway and am a recently retired hurler. Iâm not sure I could list the Munster championship fixtures off the top of my head. Why is that?
There has been a lot of talk about the GAAâs decision to essentially cede August and September to other sports. The club-and-county calendar issue is important and had to be addressed. Whether the association is wise to abandon what were, traditionally, its own months, is an on-going debate.
But right now, we are in the middle of an All-Ireland championship that does not feel like a championship to me.
There is no real build up. It appears as if games are simply being run-off: almost to get them out of the way. It is a compressed championship taking place in a different part of the calendar year. It feels odd. Thatâs why I think the GAA should be doing more to market it.
Itâs true that all counties can rely on its hurling and football supporters to show up at the stadium weekend after weekend. Maybe the GAA relies on that. The competition between sports to attract young players has never been more intense. It may not matter now but in five, 10 years it will start to have an impact. And then it will be too late.
It just sometimes feels as if the GAA makes things far more difficult than they need to be.
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