No clear plan for future of football

THE holes in Wexford football have been cruelly exposed over the past two seasons. Wexford not alone missed a golden opportunity to enhance their promotion prospects but instead inflicted an almighty wound on the game in the county.

Wexford may be kicking themselves when they reflect back on their eight-point drubbing at the expense of lowly London, but instead they should be asking serious questions of themselves, as the game has now slumped to the lower regions of the bottom of Divison 4. This is effectively where Wexford football sits at present.

I am sure people will be saying this week that it’s sad to see where football has found itself in the county. While one reflects on the past two seasons it’s now pretty obvious that Wexford has no clear or defined plan when it comes to football structure in the county.

In a way the victory over Antrim seven days earlier was a false dawn, having come on the back of a heavy opening league defeat to Leitrim, but of more importance the Leitrim defeat came following a depressing championship of 2018, when the county’s championship interests were ended in the qualifiers with a defeat to lowly Waterford, who celebrated a victory which seldom comes their way, by returning to Dungarvan to enjoy a few drinks looking out over the harbour. So much for Wexford football.

While many will claim Wexford football should be in a superior place, Wexford football must fight for such recognition, but the health of football in the county is so low that one should not be surprised that the game is being sentenced to a long term in the wilderness mainly through the apathy shown from the top right down.

When the handful of supporters were leaving the venues following those embarrassing losses fans were essentially shrugging their shoulders at the outcomes.

The general attitude was ‘should we really expect anything more than our lot there’. A defeatist attitude has crept into Wexford football psyche and people have almost accepted it.

Now we must accept that while hurling in the county is the number one sport, it must also be accepted that football is receiving equal financial recognition, but now it’s quite obvious finance will not heal what has become a painful period for Wexford football, which has seen the game decline to such a low, that it’s going to take more than finance to lift it off the floor unless the apathy is tackled head-on.

Yes, one feels that Wexford football has become totally disconnected, especially with the level of support, for less than three hundred attended Innovate Wexford Park for the Antrim victory, while on Sunday next, one can expect some seven thousand people to arrive at the county venue in support of the hurlers for their league clash with Tipperary.

While the brand is paramount to promotion, Wexford G.A.A. management cannot hide behind the fact that Wexford football has been allowed decline, mainly through lack of structure at under-age level, and their failure to continue the county’s participation in the Leinster Junior football championship, where the county annexed successive provincial titles in the recent past.

It’s no use one hearing continually of the coaching structures in place for both codes in the county. Those throwaway comments no longer sit easily and one is now beginning to see through the rubbish been spouted like that, that the games of both football and hurling are struggling in the county.

There is no doubt but that Wexford G.A.A. is sitting on the coat tails of Davy Fitzgerald and Wexford Senior hurling.

But that can no longer suffice when one sees football become practically an alien sport in the county. It’s some fifty years since Wexford won a Leinster Minor football title, while this February the county celebrates one hundred years since that famous four-in-arow All-Ireland football titles, the 1918 win was accorded in February the following year, so what does that suggest as to the future of the game in the county.

Wexford hurling faces into three crucial weeks in the league, a period that could define the county’s season, but whatever the outcome, it will do little for the plight of Wexford football. Wexford football must be delivered with a new brief to deliver the game as a vibrant brand.

Wexford football must be driven in a new direction and out of the shadows of competing codes within our county. That reads well but have Wexford GAA Management the enthusiasm to deliver that and move away from the coat tails of Davy Fitzgerald and deliver something positive for football in the county, despite it not being an elitist and popular game in the county at the moment.