Clubs vote for league structures revamp
LOUTH GAA fixture-makers returned to the drawing board last week as club’s voted to re-vamp league structures for the second time in three years.
A campaign started by disgruntled junior clubs last October to permit only first teams compete in Divisions 1, 2 and 3 secured a large majority at last Monday’s adjourned convention
Wolfe Tones tabled the successful motion, but Lannleire and Dowdallshill had also lodged proposals to return to pre-2016 league structures.
It means that from this season onwards, the top three divisions will consist of first teams only, while second teams will be restricted to Division 4 and lower.
Under a motion passed in 2015, second teams had a right to move-up the divisions over the last two seasons, but the new regime met with growing opposition from Junior/Division 3 clubs, who felt their status had been diminished as a result.
Prior to the vote Lannleire delegate David Carroll said it was a ‘disaster’ for his club and others in the Junior ranks, and he described it as a ‘very bad fit’.
Noel Finnegan of Dowdallshill, who were relegated at the end of last season, said that if they went down to Division 4 under the current regulations, then the club risked going out of existence.
That was a view echoed by Wolfe Tones, and their near neighbours St Nicholas.
There were few dissenting voices, but Naomh Mairtin, whose second team competed in Division 3 last season, claimed it would be a backward step to change the system, while Ardee St Mary’s had tabled a motion seeking to retain the status quo.
The Mairtin’s suggested that looking at the percentage of registered players permitted to play for a club’s second team and imposing stricter sanctions on clubs who conceded walk overs, would be a better way of dealing with the situation, rather than changing the entire structure.
In the end, and out of all the motions dealing with the structures issue, it was the slightly amended-one from the Tones that was put to the floor first, and it earned clear approval, with 37 delegates voting to support the change-back to the old-style format, and only two voting against.
On foot of that vote, some of the other motions dealing with the same topic were no longer relevant, but one element of another Lannleire motion which was carried, was the one that allows the winners of the reserve leagues, to enter the following years’ Kevin Mullen Shield.
However a move to allow those same teams enter the Junior Championship, was dropped.
Lannleire and Dowdallshill motions proposed to take the re-structuring a step further, advocating to split Division 3 into two sections.
There was a suggestion that such a split should be brought in from this season, but after gauging opinion from the floor, Lannliere’s motion to make the split at the start of 2019 was put to the floor and subsequently carried.