GAA fixtures in for more COVID chaos in 2021
SEAN McClean received the proverbial baptism of fire during his maiden season at the helm of Louth’s Competitions Control Committee (CCC) - and he could be in for more of the same in 2021!
The ink had barely dried on the 2020 club fixture masterplan when COVID-19 hit, forcing Sean and his CCC colleagues to shuffle and re-shuffle the pack.
Ultimately, the club Championships were a huge success as the shorter timeframe added hugely to the usual cut and thrust.
But with Croke Park announcing plans for another ‘split’ season in 2021 and COVID figures spiking again, it’s back to the drawing board for Sean and the CCC members.
This time inter-county comes first, kicking off in late February and running until July, leaving very few free weekends for club action with county players involved.
That would have allowed the CCC to kick off as usual with subsidiary competitions, but the new Level 5 lockdown and spiralling cases has thrown a spanner in the works again.
While inter-county training can resume on January 15th with challenge games and the National League to follow in February, Sean points out that it’s a very different story for clubs.
‘I gave this a lot of thought over Christmas and the reality is that we can’t play club football until we get back to Level 2 and when are we likely to get to Level 2? You’d need a crystal ball at the moment, but I’d say we’d be lucky to get there by St Patrick’s Day, maybe Easter?’
And while that March/April period might have been devoted to Sheelan Cup and Mullen
Shield games anyway, Sean reveals that the new inter-county schedule leaves very little wriggle room.
‘Please God Mickey Harte is successful and Louth could still be in action until June 24th in the Tailteann Final or a semi-final would still take you up to the first weekend of June.
‘The [club] championships this year were brilliant and everyone I’ve spoken to was delighted with them, but that’s still a 7-8 week window.
‘At the minute the first round of the Leinster Club Championships are pencilled in for October 24th, so the Championships have to be completed by then and you’d need a week’s cushion to allow for a replay.
‘So realistically you’d need the Leagues finished before the Championship starts as you’d be trying to schedule games with relegation and promotion on the line with three top teams in each grade in Leinster action.’
If club action does get the go-ahead by April, the club schedule is still extremely tight, particularly if Louth were to reach a League final, win a game in Leinster and/or do well in the inaugural Tailteann Cup.
It’s not Sean’s decision as to whether clubs play League games without their county stars, but it seems inevitable that they might have to in 2021 at least.
Another area of uncertainty for the CCC is competition motions held over from annual convention, one of which would see a whole new competition introduced for 2021.
The so-called All-County Championship would allow amalgamated junior and intermediate teams to compete against existing against senior teams.
The proposal would see eight new entities set up to compete against each other in two groups of four, with the group winners and runners-up advancing to take part in a new All-County Championship along with the 12 existing senior clubs.
These 16 teams would battle it out in a knockout competition prior to the regular club championships.
The existing championships would then proceed as normal in mid to late summer, with the eventual Joe Ward Cup winners taking on the All-County Championship winners in a type of ‘Grand Final’.
If both teams are non-amalgamated clubs, the winners of this game would represent Louth in Leinster, but if an amalgamated team reaches the ‘Grand Final’, the Joe Ward champions would take the Leinster spot.
Other motions relating to re-aligning League and Championship status are also up for discussion, but dealing with them in an online environment could prove problematic following the debacle over Sean McDermott’s statue motion at Convention last month.
Regardless of the voting mechanism, Sean feels the competition motions need to be discussed and debated properly before going to a vote and he hinted that they may be put back a year.
‘The motions are a different matter again. There are a few very good motions in there with plenty of merit, but they need proper debate and you can’t get proper debate over the internet. So until such a time as we can get back into a room and talk them through, I don’t think it’s a runner. But the way this season is shaping up it might be a bit ambitious to be trying to bring in an amalgamated Championship in ‘21 anyway,’ he added.