The Review:

WICKLOW GAA’S Bryan Doyle took centre stage at the Wicklow Review Report meeting at Ballinakill recently to outline the progress achieved or initiated since the Review was put in place.

Doyle, who has held numerous high-level positions in Wicklow County council prior to his appointment to a one-year contract, took on this new job on January 22 last year to ‘flesh out the Wicklow GAA Review’ and put the wheels in motion to try and improve Wicklow’s lot within the wider GAA world.

‘One year on (from the Pat Gilroy Review being launched) this meeting provides an opportunity to review progress and priorities for 2019. The next steps will require people resources. To quote Pat Gilroy: ‘but if our recommendations are to reach fruition club leadership cannot stop there (completing the review). Implementation and buy-in from here on is crucial. Success is dependent on people,’ wrote Bryan Doyle in the letter received by all clubs prior to the meeting.

The initial complaints that I got was that there was no website, we had historical information on the website and that it was poor,’ began Bryan Doyle at Balllinakill in front of a relatively small crowd of club delegates.

‘The big thing was to look at our commercial model. A lot of other counties have put a lot of work into putting in place a structure that can look at all aspects of finance within the county. We looked at putting a structure in place that would mean that the county is on a firm financial footing – and in particular to broaden the very narrow base that we have here in Wicklow. And at the same time making sure that we are not going to dip into the local sponsors who are going to support clubs,’ he added.

‘With regard to the fixtures, the masters fixtures plan was adopted and generally adhered to in 2018. Two weeks ago, it was reviewed and we’re waiting to see what the fixtures people bring back to us. For someone who looked at a lot of matches last year and was involved in teams I think it went reasonably well.

‘There’s a number of issues that we didn’t touch base with, such as county byelaw 41, CCC, that hasn’t been reached, and also create a role to service and enhance the CCC. They are a couple of items that are still outstanding that we haven’t touched on.

‘The plan for 2019, there was a big debate around fixtures. In the club that I was involved with, we did get our county players back for a significant number of our league matches. It‘s always been a problem, be it Minors, under-21 or adult football. That’s not going to change anytime soon. I think when the fixtures are put in place in early January there will be a long, hard talk about things. Only the people in this room can solve it and I think that a lot of goodwill between everyone will solve it.

‘I think the discussion over the CCC and how it operates and people making contact with it, we have a procedure and a protocol in place now after a lot of discussion during the year. Hopefully that will be successful next year.

‘We did talk about having an under-19 or under-20 club competition, I’ve been at a few of those matches and they’ve been good and it’s great to see. We’ve been