Four walkovers in Bar ton Shield

ONCE again, I’m back to the subject of clubs entering teams in GUI events and then failing to play, and last weekend was no exception with four, yes, four, walkovers in the Barton Shield.

The seriousness of this was highlighted to me by two members of the Doneraile panel that I met in Ballybunion on Friday night.

They had elected to stay overnight in the town because of an early start on Saturday morning and had just arrived in Ballybunion on Friday evening when they received notification that Doneraile had received a walkover and would not be playing on Saturday morning.

Then, the following morning, they found out that they had another walkover, meaning that they wouldn’t be playing until Sunday.

This is simply not good enough and there are habitual offenders, with one club from South Kerry giving walkovers this year alone in the Senior Cup, Junior Cup and Barton Shield.

The message is simple, if you cannot field a team, then don’t enter the tournament, as it is causing serious inconvenience to other individuals and clubs.

It’s now time for the GUI to bite the bullet and apply sanctions to these clubs but I’m informed that they are slow to do this as they are dependent on some of these clubs to host matches and so the offenders get away with it.

Perhaps the way forward is for some Kerry club to put a motion to the annual delegates meeting in November calling on sanctions for clubs who fail to show at inter-club events, and then maybe, for once and for all, this horrible practice will be eradicated from our game.