The Kerryman (South Kerry Edition)
Whelan: Players’ health more important than contact sport
KERRY GAA vice-chairman Eamon Whelan has welcomed the comments of GAA President John Horan which, Whelan says, brought “huge clarification” with regard to when inter-county football might resume, as well as issues around playing Gaelic games behind closed stadium gates.
Horan’s comments on The Sunday Game on Sunday night - “If social distancing is a priority to deal with this pandemic I don’t know how we can play a contact sport and that is what Gaelic games is, a contact sport” - along with a GAA statement the previous Wednesday which said they “can confirm that no inter-county games are expected to take place before October” - means it will be almost five months from now, at the very least, before inter-county football or hurling will be played.
Mr Whelan told The Kerryman this week that the President’s comments are to be welcomed because it removes much of the uncertainty inter-county players and club players to come extent - have been under to continue individual training without knowing when training or competitive action will resume.
“I was delighted to hear (Horan’s) comments in terms of bringing clarity because I think there was a lot of different stories and rumours going around and I just felt that his comments or his answers brought huge clarification to what we needed,” Mr Whelan said. “I suppose what we can’t get clarity on is when the social distancing policies can be relaxed. Obviously the social distancing part of it is the kernel to the whole community, to the whole country - to the whole world, I suppose, at this stage.
“I would say in terms of going back playing, I’m not so sure about inter-county football...if inter-county football can’t take place I’m not so sure you can have club football either because realistically there are (Kerry) club players living and working outside Kerry. If you were just to say it will be okay to play club football but not inter-county football, we still have club players coming from all different parts of Limerick, Cork, maybe Dublin, Kildare or wherever.
“I think (Horan) also clarified very much in terms of playing behind closed doors. Some people were saying it’d be okay to play behind closed doors, but it’s obviously not okay to play behind closed doors because the livelihoods of the players and their families and who they are going back working with and living with, you’re putting them in jeopardy if you’re saying it’s okay for them but not for spectators. It’s across the board really.”
John Horan said the risk of GAA players and members getting infected with Covid-19 means that GAA facilities will remain closed until July 20 at the earliest. He added that that date could change depending on the public health situation, but said it was
not his Association’s responsibility to police the Government’s roadmap guidelines with respect to re-opening sports facilities to allow for limited use by controlled numbers.
Eamon Whelan said that with no inter-county action going to happen until October at the earliest, it’s his opinion that players’ individual training schedules should be relaxed in the short term.
“Any contact I’ve had with players that has been one of the most difficult things - the uncertainty. A lot of them felt ‘oh, we need to keep fit, we need to keep fit because we don’t know when games will re-start, and we don’t what other counties or clubs to have a head-start on us’. I think that’s where the clarity was really required and where you had a lot of, maybe not club teams, but certainly inter-county teams all over the country still training and trying to put up so much mileage on GPSs,” he said. “
I think that puts ferocious pressure on those players whereas now at least they know definitely the inter-county scene will not now start before the first of October. It mightn’t even start on the first of October but at least we know what we need to do to have ourselves fit for the first of October, which doesn’t mean we have to be absolutely killing ourselves now.
“Personally I would hope that this would mean the players would just go away and if they want to go for a jog or a run or cycle they can just go away and do that, but certainly not to have the pressures of having to put up such mileage that satisfies a GPS system for some trainer. I think we have to be very cognisant of the fact that players obviously have their own pressures and work commitments and different things, and they certainly don’t need to be clocking up this imaginary figure for something that is not going to happen for many months time or maybe not at all.
In general I would say that the clarity brought on Sunday night - and sure of course we all have to have hope, and we’d all love to see games back soon - but realistically I think the health of our players and their families and the general public is still more important than going back into contact sport for the time being.”
With regard to how the Kerry County Committee plan to get club action back up and running when the time comes, the vice-chairman said: “We’ve had a little bit of a discussion on it but probably over the next few days or week the CCC will sit down and discuss and look at the possible dates that there may be a return and try to come up with the best possible way to facilitate as many players as we can to get back into action in a safe way. And maybe not in the most competitive of nature, but just to try and get people back out doing a bit of training and playing when the health organisations say it is safe to do so. It will be at least another week or two before we would have any sort of road map on that.”