Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
SOMETHING HAS TO GIVE get creative to rescue season at club and county levels
After ‘elite status’ bombshell, GAA are going to have to
FACED with the prospect of no competitive games being played before May, the GAA now has to deal with an even more testing fixtures conundrum than they did last year.
Remember, when the plug was abruptly pulled on all activity last March, the bulk of the Allianz Leagues had at least been completed.
Now, it looks as though there may be less than eight months to fit everything in – club and county – so something clearly has to give.
We look at some of the options that the GAA will be mulling over in the coming weeks.
RUN THE CLUB SEASON FIRST
IT worked well last year and gave impetus to the split season model but the GAA was always determined to get the intercounty season done and dusted firstly this year.
But with the master fixtures plan published in December now in tatters, putting the club first is back on the table. Presuming it is May before competitive action can resume, a full League and Championship season from that point would wipe out much of the rest of the year and leave the club season severely squeezed.
Allowing the club to go first would at least guarantee that every player gets to play at the earliest possible opportunity and may allow for crowds to be facilitated at inter-county games at the back end of the year.
Against that, it will be dependent on the public health picture and, whatever about inter-county games regaining their elite status exemption, it certainly won’t be happening for the club scene. Mobilising club players across the country at a time when a sufficient percentage of the population has yet to be vaccinated would carry a greater risk than giving the green light to inter-county activity only.
SCRAP THE ALLIANZ LEAGUES FOR 2021
THIS appears to be the simplest and tidiest option available to the GAA. It would still allow the intercounty season to be wrapped up in July/august, as was originally planned, thereby creating little or no disruption for the club season.
It would require tinkering with the Championship format in football as the much-maligned Tailteann Cup would have to be put up on blocks for another year, but that was done with minimum fuss last year.
Essentially, the huge surge in cases after Christmas has obliterated the space in the calendar that the GAA had set aside for the Allianz Leagues, even in a truncated format. It’s difficult to see how the competitions can be further altered while buying the GAA meaningful time.
Shoehorning a full club and county season into an eightmonth window, if even that, is not feasible and sacrifices will have to be made. Last year it was the provincial and All-ireland club championships, though they should hardly be the fall guy again.
Moreover, running the Leagues will come at a significant cost and the GAA isn’t exactly flush with money at the moment.
The main drawback of not staging the Leagues relates to lower-ranking football counties, for whom the competition has
assumed greater importance in recent years. But, at the very least, their League campaign will be compromised in any event this year.
Might it not be better for the likes of newly-promoted Wicklow and Limerick to enjoy a full seven-game Division Three campaign with ample preparation behind them in 2022 than run the risk of suffering a swift relegation in a blitz-style competition this year?
RUN THE CLUB SEASON BETWEEN LEAGUE AND CHAMPIONSHIP
IN theory, this should work but the demands, not to mention egos, that come with so many inter-county managers means that the idea of them waving their players off once the League is finished and leaving them in peace until a few weeks before the Championship is fanciful.
Instances of county squads training both of late and last summer during the club window offer conclusive evidence in that respect.
As well as that, going with this model would raise questions as to when the provincial and All-ireland club championships would be held, though they would likely spill over into 2022. That might be tolerable, but would still place a strain on next year’s calendar.
REVERT TO A KNOCKOUT CHAMPIONSHIP
THE GAA could shave a couple of weeks off the League by removing the semifinal stages in football and making the groupings smaller in hurling, while a similar timesaving could be made by starting knockout Championships immediately afterwards.
Would it be enough? Not likely. Given the live prospect of losing such a sizeable chunk of the year, the GAA needs to be creative in how it redraws the season. This wouldn’t quite go far enough.
A YEAR ago James Lowe was riding jet skis and lying on beaches in 30 degree weather in New Zealand.
A lot has changed in 12 months.
“It’s been an absolute whirlwind of a year,” admitted Lowe.
Allowed home for a brief post-christmas break, his return to Dublin last February lasted for two PRO14 games as Covid-19 shut down sport.
“I remember, it must have been March, being told not to go into work,” he said.
“The boys were kind of happy, we thought we’d get a week of golf, and then all of a sudden the golf courses are closed, we can’t go into Leinster.
“It’s been completely different, but you embrace the challenge.
“It’s been an interesting year.” He finds himself in Ireland’s bubble now, preparing for the
France clash on Sunday happy in the knowledge that his family and friends in New Zealand are living in a Covid-free environment, but concerned for his girlfriend, who is without him during this two-game period.
The 28-year-old has gone from mercurial Leinster winger to new Ireland cap who has a question mark hanging over his defence, with former England try machine Chris Ashton particularly outspoken on the matter. “He’s actually one of the people who’s been there and understands but 99 per cent of people who voice their opinion, they’re not the ones I care about or worry about,” Lowe reflected.
“There’s a group of men in here who have set out on a mission to achieve something and we’ll tell each other square to the face.
“It’s a professional environment based on performance.
We’re all in here going in the same direction, trying to achieve the same things.
“For me, that’s all that really matters.”
The Kiwi returned to Dublin last autumn and became Ireland qualified in November, in time to make a try-scoring debut against Wales before finding himself a magnet for criticism in a loss to England at Twickenham.
He suffered a groin injury a few days later and missed the entire festive schedule.
“Horrific,” Lowe declared. “Really annoying.
“It was one of those things where it was a little niggly one.
“Two steps forward, one step back through the whole eight weeks of rehab. It started off with my groin and I thought I’d get my knee fixed at the same time.
“They weren’t working too well together, my knee and my groin, and yeah it was just tedious progress. But we’re back fully fit and ready to rumble.”