All managers are failing their players in latest ‘dual player’ issue in the GAA
OU just know that after this week the whole thing will melt away like the snow that carpeted several GAA pitches last Sunday and be forgotten about. Four Sigerson Cup semi-finalists became two yesterday evening and by Saturday evening a new Sigerson Cup champion will be crowded and all the hue and cry will drain away. Third-Level team managers will privately gripe and moan for a few days after that until no one listens anymore, and inter-county team managers will survey the fall-out and simply hope their student players have come through a few weeks of tough examinations. By April no one will even know who the Sigerson Cup champions are and more of us will have to Google the word to be sure how to spell the damned competition.
But lessons - or learnings, as more and more GAA folk are inclined to say - still need to be learned. Suffice to say, the new ‘dual player’ phenomenon reared its head again in the last few weeks, and while the strained relationships of the last month will inevitably thaw out, those relationships will become frosty again in 12 months time if something isn’t done about it.
UCC and CIT’s early-ish exit from the Sigerson Cup meant Ronan McCarthy’s access to his student players wasn’t as curtailed as it might have been, but across the county bounds in Kerry this year there was an outbreak of what we shall diplomatically call disgruntlement on the part if IT Tralee and how they did or didn’t get best use of their students for said Sigerson Cup.
The crux of the issue revolved around David Clifford and his unavailability for IT Tralee’s Sigerson Cup quarter-final last week after injuring his hamstring the previous weekend while on Kerry duty in the National League. Needless to say the ITT management weren’t best pleased that their star player - who is on a sports scholarship at the Kerry college - wasn’t able to play for them against DIT.
Maybe it was because it was Clifford who was at the centre of the problem, or maybe it was because it was the local Third-Level college involved - or both - that this county versus college issue seemed more heightened around these parts this year then in previous years, but it’s a nationwide issue and should be dealt with as such. If it is Kerry this year it could easily be Cork next year, even with the best intentions of all the team managers involved.
The wider and more pertinent issue here is how those county and college managers do or don’t work together to guarantee the well-being of what are young players trying to launch their inter-county careers while also serving a college team where they may well be on a scholarship.
Take the Kerry footballers Barry O’Sullivan and Jack Barry as an example. Both are students in UCD and after a promising underage careers with Kerry both are looking to establish themselves with the Kerry senior panel.
Jack Barry broke into the senior team 12 months ago; O’Sullivan is getting his opportunity now.
When Jack Barry - O’Sullivan’s midfielder partner with UCD this year - was selected to start for Kerry against Donegal on January 28 in the first round of the National League but had to withdraw shortly before the match due to injury, it was O’Sullivan who took his Kerry jersey at midfield. The Dingle man played 54 minutes before being withdrawn.
Six days later, the pair partnered each other in Castlebar against Mayo in the NFL, with both on the field for every one of the 76 minutes played.
Five days before the Donegal game both men played for UCD against Maynooth; Barry playing 59 minutes and O’Sullivan completing the full game.
The Wednesday after their exertions in Castlebar the pair played every minute of UCD’s Sigerson Cup quarter-final win over DCU.
Four days later they were named at midfield for Kerry for last Sunday’s NFL game away to Monaghan. As it happened, that game was postponed because of an unplayable pitch, but they were nevertheless being asked to play that game just three days before they’d be back in action for UCD in last night’s Sigerson Cup semi-final against UUJ.
Had Kerry’s game against Monaghan gone ahead as scheduled and Barry O’Sullivan had played even one half of football against them he was facing the prospect of having played (at least) five and a quarter games of football - hard football on yielding pitches - in 22 days (assuming he soldiered through the entirety of yesterday’s Sigerson semi-final).
That’s a full game against Maynooth on January 23, 54 minutes against Donegal five days later, then another full game against Mayo on February 3, a full Sigerson game versus DCU on February 7, whatever he would have been asked to played against Monaghan last Sunday and as much as UCD manager John Divily could wring out of him in Inniskeen last night.
The Sigerson Cup semi-final results, alas, weren’t with us as we penned this column, but the Sigerson Cup final is fixed for this Saturday and if UCD were successful against UUJ and O’Sullivan didn’t succumb to injury, then he will be out in action again on Saturday in a Championship final match.
As it happens, Kerry’s postponed game with Monaghan has been re-fixed for next Sunday, and if UCD are in that Sigerson final 24 hours earlier we can assume neither O’Sullivan nor Jack Barry will be in their county colours on Sunday.
But what if they played a tough semi-final against UUJ last night and lost? Will they be asked to resume that midfield partnership for Kerry on Sunday?
You’d imagine not, but they were being asked to play against Monaghan last Sunday (had the game gone ahead) just three days before they’d be naturally expected to tog out for the college.
Speaking last Friday, ahead of the scheduled Monaghan game, Kerry manager Eamonnn Fitzmaurice addressed the issue with regard to the Sigerson Cup.
“In fairness we have this debate every year with regard to the scheduling of the National League and the Sigerson Cup on at the same time,” he continued. “It places big demands on young players. From our point of view it was one of the reasons we did not play in the McGrath Cup this year because we wanted to reduce the amount of games in that period of the year.
“We monitor the lads very closely and player welfare would be top of our list of concerns always. For example, all the lads who played Sigerson Cup this week would have worn GPS units from us to monitor their load, so we are on top of where they are at. “P
LAYER welfare? Someone’s having a laugh. It’s hard to blame Fitzmaurice for wanting to hot-house some new players in the early rounds of the League. He’s under pressure in Kerry this year to get results in the Championship.
Hard to blame IT Tralee manager Liam Brosnan for being aggrieved at seeing his best player, Clifford, getting injured playing for Kerry three days before the IT’s biggest game of their season. And it’s easy to see how UCD boss John Divily has to play his dynamic midfield duo of O’Sullivan and Barry for nearly every minute of the Dublin college’s Sigerson Cup campaign.
The solution is simple: Croke Park needs to take the decision out of managers’ hands. In a results driven business it’s understandable, if not acceptable, that each and every manager will do the necessary to get the right result for his team.
Moving or scraping the Sigerson Cup isn’t really an option so the only other way is to preclude any student who plays a Sigerson Cup game from playing an inter-county game within, say, seven days of each other.
Barry O’Sullivan is a young lad trying his utmost to break into the Kerry senior team. He’s also trying to serve his College team in Dublin. He shouldn’t be expected to tell one manager or another that he won’t play for them in a given game. Between them those managers need to do just that: manage him.
Would it be any surprise if an overloaded player like O’Sullivan broke down with injury this week or next?
In the eagerness on everyone’s part to have O’Sullivan play for them, it could end up that he plays for no one. Everyone’s a loser then, especially the player.