HE spoke to the tribune about it in an article earlier on this year:
Winter bans, college competitions and demands on young players are creating a perfect storm of frustration for many as the new GAA year starts, write Ewan MacKenna and Enda McEvoy
Students of the game: DCU captain Paddy Andrews and teammates celebrate victory in last yearâs Sigerson Cup [b]The Fitzgibbon Cup never impinged on Ger OâLoughlin as a Clare player. He knew that SeĂĄnie McMahon, Jamesie OâConnor and the Lohans had taken part in it. He was aware that they attributed much of their improvement as hurlers to their immersion in this most competitive and demanding of arenas. But that was where the Fitzgibbon began and ended for OâLoughlin. It was little more than a rumour. A competition for other lads, for younger lads. It had nothing to do with him.
The Fitzgibbon Cup impinges on Ger OâLoughlin as Clare manager. God, how it impinges. Want to know how many of the Clare panel are involved on the third-level front at the moment? Heâll tell you. Fourteen, split between NUIG, UCC and Limerick IT. The last-named institution took on Denis Walshâs Cork team in Mallow in a challenge on Wednesday night and fielded no fewer than seven Clare men, among them James McInerney, Pat Donnellan and Conor Cooney. Thatâs half of OâLoughlinâs prospective championship defence there. What makes life even more difficult is that, far from dealing with a successful, experienced and inherently stable squad, heâs trying to construct a team for the future from a panel three-quarters comprised of players aged 22 or under.
Clare started back last Monday night. They trained again on Wednesday and Friday. Today they take on Wexford in a challenge match in Cashel. OâLoughlin would love to have had the college lads there this past week, working with them, helping groove them in his way of thinking. But he knows he couldnât, he knows he has to be flexible and he knows too that saying âsomething must be doneâ will solve nothing.
âIt was a real eye-opener for me though,â OâLoughlin admits. âI wasnât that au fait with the third-level scene or with the importance that players put on it. Youâre building for the league, youâve only a seven-week window to get the work done and you want everyone on board. Yet the lads want to play with their college and in some cases, because of scholarships, are under pressure to play. If you donât try and get the balance right they could be training or playing six nights out of seven. Youâre doing a balancing act but thereâs always the niggling worry they might be doing some kind of training with their college that you wouldnât want them to be doing.â [/b]
As a new manager who has been asked to jump a high hurdle so soon after taking his first baby steps, OâLoughlin is far from alone. In football, there are 10 taking the plunge into inter-county management this weekend and they are all faced with the same problem. The college problem. When Mayo take on Leitrim in the Connacht League at 2.00 today, James Horan will be without 17 players that he called up to his initial panel. âItâs been quite difficult because Iâm just new to the job. We are playing Down in the National League on 7 February and the bottom line is that I might get all my panel together maybe once before that game, twice if Iâm lucky. So I donât know how Iâm supposed to work out a team and a panel by then.â
Itâs a major problem for players too. With Horanâs college panellists lining out at the same time as Mayo over the coming weeks, he wonât get to see them and as a result they may not get a chance when squad numbers are cut back for the league. Itâs the same across the country. âMost of the time you are hoping to look at guys who are on the fringes of panels and this is the time where their best chance of making a breakthrough is,â agrees new Meath manager Seamus McEnaney. âBut that canât happen if they arenât there. So itâs hurting players and they may not get their chance because of all this.â
Few inter-county managers will say it out loud but when you stop the tape recorder many have the same solution. Right now, there is just no place for college sides in inter-county competitions. Late in 2002 when Connacht Council members met with university representatives and decided to expand the Connacht League for the 2003 season to eight teams, including NUIG, GMIT and Sligo IT, the present-day problem was never foreseen. At the time, county panels trained in November and December, managers had plenty of time to study fringe players and hold challenge games and knew their hand before they sat down at the table in January.
âIt comes back to the whole inter-county training ban which is not workable for a composite of reasons,â argues GMIT manager John Maughan. âWe have an under-21 footballer who happens to be on an inter-county panel, who happens to be playing Sigerson and club football and that guy is going to be absolutely flat out over the coming months. Having a ban for teams beaten in July is farcical, every county should be dealt with separately. Burnout happens from now on and thatâs when it needs to be managed. Burnout doesnât happen in November, in December, and itâs the ban rather than colleges that are the problem.â
Either way, now inter-county managers are going to that January table blind. Novelty has been replaced by nuisance and for what? Last summer, 33 football teams played out 64 games. In hurling 13 teams played out 25 games. With those sorts of measly numbers at the pinnacle of Gaelic games, the league should be big news so why devalue it by giving those same teams no time to prepare? This yearâs Sigerson Cup will be run off over two weekends but with colleges having first call on so many inter-county players it appears it has been given precedence over the National League. And itâs not like college sports here hold anything like the importance they do in a country like the USA or people here have any love or affiliation with colleges. In fact how many people could even name the current Sigerson or Fitzgibbon champions? How many have ever been to a game in either competition?
For the record, DCU are current Sigerson champions and Dublin selector Niall Moyna has been over the side for a decade. But rather than the structure, he blames the calendar. "The way it is now, the seasons for different competitions donât make any sense to anyone. The way the colleges look at this is that this is our championship season, we play our big games in four to six weeks and the counties arenât at that stage for four to six months. In fact come the National League semi-finals county managers always say it doesnât matter at that stage so they canât have it every way. Right now we know what training we have our players doing but you have players going to a lot of different counties and doing different types of training and youâve the nonsense going on before Christmas. If you ask me itâs just abuse and these young bodies canât put up with it.
âI sat on the committee that suggested the training ban and on reflection there should be a lot of people who should be able to train in November and December, who arenât involved in college. As long as they arenât going out three or four nights a week. But right now you have to look at third level and say is it worth it? If you are going to have this hassle every year and players are always caught in the middle, maybe there is no need for third level anymore and Iâm very serious in saying that. Maybe there is enough with senior and under-21. If itâs not going to be done at an appropriate level and we donât have the time and effort to develop players then thereâs no point in having colleges. Itâs not going to work and it canât continue this way.â There are plenty who would agree with that, many of them inter-county managers. Something has to give. It should be the winter ban. If not, then it has to be the colleges.
