GAA should weigh risk of having teams travel for their leftover League games
“Is it essential to finish the league? Why not call it null and void?”
WITH the GAA’s Central Council expected to today ratify the winter All-Ireland championships, it looks set to be a defining week for the 2020 season. September 14 has long been flagged as the date when collective intercounty training can resume, making Monday something of a milestone in this stop-start year.
But when it comes to an inter-county return, the devil will be in the detail.
With the GAA, GPA and Government all making the necessary public sounds to ensure the championships take place, even on a hugely restricted basis in terms of crowds, the complication comes in the shape of the Allianz Football League.
The home and away element to the league is problematic because it can involve travelling the length or breadth of the country depending on the pairings in any division.
Rounds six and seven of the competition are outstanding and due to be played on the weekend beginning October 17, the official date for the return of competitive inter-county games.
In Division 1, round six involves no less than three local derbies that don’t blur any provincial lines.
Dessie Farrell’s Dublin host Meath in a game that has a touch of old-world glamour to it, even if the visitors are already doomed to drop down a division; Donegal and Tyrone play out a bout of shadow-boxing pre-championship; Galway and Mayo lock horns in Connacht’s eternal struggle; and Kerry face the long away trip to Monaghan, a journey of fourplus hours. When the National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) advised the Government to put sporting fixtures behind closed doors, it was because they did not want people congregating or gathering around games, as much as in the stands. There was also the sense that NPHET didn’t want groups of players or supporters travelling to matches together, mixing outside their family bubbles in enclosed settings, such as in a car, for a journey of any length.
So how does that tally with a county team traversing half of Ireland together for an away league game?
In Division 2 that same weekend, Fermanagh travel away to Clare, a journey of roughly three hours. In Division 3, Louth face another three-hour journey before playing already-promoted Cork.
Wexford, too, travel to Limerick. Then there’s London, whose participation in any competition has long been questioned due to quarantine restrictions. The knock-on effect for figuring out final league standings has yet to be revealed.
Here’s one county board chairman speaking to Sportsmail.
‘The league is on a home and away basis which raises its own issues. Sure we all know the ruling from NPHET to travel outside your county. It’s not best practice to do an overnight in groups. It’s not best practice to be in a group of any more than six.
‘Is it essential to finish the league? Why don’t they call the whole thing null and void and move on to next year?’
The same official understands all the justifications to proceed with a winter championship. Taoiseach Micheál Martin described the effort as a ‘symbol that a country is fighting this virus, that it’s not going to surrender to it’.
But there are real concerns that the final rounds of the league present challenging logistical difficulties. This week saw criticism of the plan to reopen ‘wet’ pubs, and talk of new restrictions being applied in Dublin and Limerick where there has been a spike in coronavirus cases. It was telling when Kildare senior football selector Tom Cribbin prophesied the extended lockdown in his own county in an interview in the Irish Mail on Sunday, and said things had already reached the point where the rest of the season should be used to complete club programmes rather than trying to squeeze in a winter All-Ireland. The Kildare senior football championship has since returned from cold storage but with a fragile timeframe for completion. Former GAA president Liam O’Neill was one of the first to point out the logistical problems presented by trying to finish the National League in a recent interview with this reporter in the same paper.
‘There is a huge difference between a player in Laois playing club championship, say Stradbally playing Ballylinan, a few hundred people going to the game. All localised. So any spread is localised.
‘That’s very different to Laois playing Fermanagh in a National League. And that game is outstanding. Now you have to cross the border, you have to cross jurisdictions, you have to cross different attitudes to the pandemic. So there is a huge difference between travelling that distance, even if it’s only the team. The club thing gives us a chance to localise it. Have the feel-good factor.’
It’s round seven when Laois are down to travel for that fixture, just before the provincial championship starts up.
Louth chair Peter Fitzpatrick yesterday voiced to RTÉ what some top officials are clearly thinking.
‘The first thing I would have to commend the GAA for is letting the club championships go ahead that has really helped the grassroots. This virus has spread through the country but the GAA has been one step ahead of so many other organisations in terms of looking after everyone in the area.
‘Every club has put their shoulder to the wheel. My only worry now is that they may have
to spend €20million to have an All-Ireland series this year. It is an awful lot of money.
‘Many county boards have resources and are struggling. Here in Louth, we will be taking it one game at time, but the scenario is different for everyone.
‘Changes will have to be made, even if only for one year. Players may have to accept reduced mileage and panels could be limited to make sure this runs ahead. But it is a very serious amount of money to play for one-off games and deep down I wonder can we afford to spend that? I’m not sure about it.’
Especially when the estimated cost of running the championship runs to the order of €20m.
Because the players are amateur, the testing system that’s a feature of a lot of professional team sport will not be in place. So the players aren’t coming from any NBA-type bubble to get on a team coach for a fourhour, one-way journey.
With the shape of the weeks and months to come set to be revealed, it will be interesting to see if the GAA’s secondary national competition remains intact.