‘Club return is a chance for the best to impress’
ARMAGH and Crossmaglen legend Oisín McConville reckons that there is no reason why club and county GAA can’t live side-by-side and even prosper at the same time.
Croke Park have taken the decision to allow clubs to take precedence in this most unusual of seasons, with inter-county activity not allowed to return until the middle of September. It has led to some ructions in recent weeks, with rumours that some county teams are not following the rules and have organised training sessions.
However, McConville feels that club and county should not be mutually exclusive and that some club players can force their way into their county panel if they perform when they have this moment in the limelight.
‘The club is where I found a love for the game, first and foremost,’ the 2002 All-Ireland winner says. ‘When I was growing up, it was under-10 before there was any sort of competitive action, so I was running after the manager from when I was four, and did that for three years before I got a sniff of any action.
‘It was about fun, all my friends played, my parents were involved, my brothers were involved, my sisters were involved. It was never going to go any other way, other than me playing football. The area where I was from, the club wasn’t just about gathering for sport, but it gave us an identity at a time when we really needed an identity.’
And McConville thinks this is a sensible approach, allowing clubs to finally come first. ‘We’ve been hearing the last couple of years about club coming first, and I’m glad on this occasion that club is getting the first crack at this,’ the All-Star attacker suggests.
‘People need to remember that inter-county players are club players as well, and 95 per cent of those are absolutely determined to give it all for their club. The whole club versus county debate doesn’t stack up for me. They are not mutually exclusive, both inter-county football and club football can prosper at the same time.’
As this weekend marks a whole new beginning for the GAA season, McConville believes that there might be opportunities for club players to remind the county manager of what they can do.
‘At inter-county level a lot of teams had their panel done and dusted, they were down to the last two games in the League. It’s very difficult to break into a panel at that stage. But with the way things have gone, if you are an inter-county manager and you are looking at a player who is in form who maybe you haven’t looked at, maybe a younger guy or a guy who has called it a day at inter-county level.
‘To have someone playing well at the right time of year is worth its weight in gold so I imagine you will see a lot of that — maybe one or two in each county where players have just come into form, they have been electric throughout the club championship, they are introduced straight into the county panel.’
McConville says that he got his first jolt of excitement about the games being back when he heard that the under-9s were going back training.
‘When we train at Under-9 level we have four or five coaches, and we have a girl who goes around and is the Covid officer, and without people like her, and without people willing to those jobs, the stuff that goes on on the field, which is often the only thing people see, those things can’t happen.’ ALL-IRELAND champions Galway have been drawn against 2018 holders Cork in the revised draw of the camogie championship. The meeting of the two giants is a rematch of last year’s semi-final and they will be joined by Wexford and Offaly in Group One.
REVISED ALL-IRELAND SENIOR CAMOGIE DRAW — Group 1: Galway, Cork, Offaly, Wexford; Group 2: Kilkenny, Limerick, Waterford, Westmeath; Group 3: Tipperary, Clare, Dublin. INTERMEDIATE DRAW — Group 1: Galway, Dublin, Kildare, Laois; Group 2: Meath, Kerry, Cork; Group 3: Down, Kerry, Kilkenny; Group 4: Tipperary, Antrim, Carlow. JUNIOR DRAW — Group 1: Clare, Offaly, Wexford; Group 2: Armagh, Limerick, Roscommon, Waterford.