False hope offered to our club players, and it has to stop

WEXFORD G.A.A. must rectify the injustice done to our middle ground players in 2018. Such was the rush to make a decision, rightly or wrongly, with limited discussion, that Wexford decided to opt out of this year’s Leinster Junior football and Intermediate hurling championships, two grades the county has been highly successful in in the past.

Only recently they put back-to-back provincial Junior football titles together, while also winning a Leinster Intermediate hurling title.

With a demoralising pattern emerging among clubs in Wexford, like so many other counties, the ordinary club players are becoming more and more frustrated with the fractured nature of the fixtures.

The ordinary club player is fast becoming peripheral to the Association, leaving clubs with the difficult task of appeasing those players as they await a fixture pattern for the championship as we move into August.

Wexford G.A.A. have compounded the anguish of those players. In April, the so-called month of the clubs, Wexford packed in two rounds of Senior football games in bizarre circumstances, with pitches unplayable, venues being switched at the last hour, and times being swapped around as a result, while towards the end of the month a round of hurling was pitched in when grounds were still practically unplayable.

Less than three months ago we had this urgency from the top table and the fixtures committee to fulfil the wishes of Croke Park to have April succeed as a club month. But the games were at an all-time low as clubs had little time to prepare, and were asked to play in atrocious conditions.

In no small part, all they were doing was fulfilling fixtures before being sent away for the best months of the playing season, without any substantive engagement from the Association as they awaited notice as to when they would be required again.

Not everyone will agree, but once these decisions were being made at the start of the year, the players should have been brought into the debate.

With the Senior inter-county sides dictating the fixtures format, and Croke Park deciding to introduce more games with round robins in both hurling and football, having earlier preached about making more time available for the clubs, this has raised anger among the grassroots.

It may sound contradictory in calling for Wexford to re-engage with the provincial Junior and Intermediate grades in hurling and football. But on the evidence of what was witnessed this year, these games would be taking place at a time when the players being called upon were left in isolation with only meaningless club league games, and it would not have disrupted the club structures any further.

A demoralising pattern is emerging of false hopes being offered to the club players. That promise has become an empty one. Only a fool would not have anticipated that the Senior inter-county scene would dictate club activity.

The Junior and Intermediate grades have a role to play in counties such as Wexford, and can be played off side by side with Senior, so causing no further interruptions to club structures, but giving such players an opportunity not just to represent their county, but to take an important further step towards reaching the top level.

Last weekend unveiled two of the greatest games of hurling seen this decade in the All-Ireland semi-finals. Credit to Galway, Clare, Limerick and Cork for two enthralling games with not even extra-time able to separate Galway and Clare, while Limerick’s late, late surge handed them a first All-Ireland final appearance in eleven years.

Clare lifted their game at least two more levels to what was witnessed in their quarter-final victory over Wexford, turning in a remarkable display against the reigning All-Ireland champions.

Wexford may not have been represented where they would have liked to be, but still played a leading role.

John Meyler, despite Cork’s extra-time defeat, demonstrated that he is now among the top managers in the game, while the officiating of James Owens in charge of the Galway v. Clare classic was top class to say the least, as was the efficiency of his umpires.

Rathgarogue-Cushinstown native and former Wexford player, Paud O’Dwyer, now operating out of Palatine and Carlow, was a model of consistency too in his first major game, the Limerick/Cork clash. Well done to all.