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SPLIT SEASON GOOD REASON
THE inter-county scene is where it’s at.
I’ll always say that. The club game is simply an inferior product.
I’ve always held my hands up and said I’ve never been a massive man for my club.
Throughout my county career, it was always county first.
I’ve had a relatively successful club career and I’ve loved my time playing for the club, playing with lads who I grew up with, or winning a cup with my two brothers. How can you not love that? I understand the importance of the club in the GAA.
But the importance is from a social perspective — not so much on the playing field.
Clubs fielding 15 players any given weekend is but one extension of what a club should be.
And for me, it’s a small one at that.
Clubs should aspire to be community hubs. I’ve seen, recently, clubs in Donegal holding maths grinds for their young players, flying the pride flag and holding family fun events.
Surface
Clubs have only scratched the surface with this kind of stuff.
The thing is, if you want to watch the best teams playing and you want to watch the best football then you go to an inter-county game. For me, there’s no argument there.
Malachy Clerkin wrote a great article on the club scene in 2019 and for me it was so on the nose.
Here is a quote that probably gives the jist of it and summarises the point I’m trying to make:
‘The club championships have their charms — of course they do.
‘But you wouldn’t want to overstate them, either. Even if you remove November grey from them, they’ll still be local affairs, cared about deeply but singularly by local people.
‘They can’t plug into the communal heft that sustains and drives a GAA summer.’
Obviously, I’m just not one of the lads who over romanticise and laud the club scene, and I’ve seen so much of that playing out recently.
Overall, the club has the potential to be so much more important than the county game.
But the way people are talking you’d swear there is top quality fare on show that rivals the county game.
It’s so far removed from the truth. I’d go as far as to say the extra time spent with their clubs will actually hinder the development of some players.
There’s a lot of nonsense chatted about the club thing and I see such privileged thinking from clubs all the time.
This attitude of clubs around Ireland was exemplified several times during the year.
Attitude
We had Kilcoo’s Eugene Branagan talking about the attitude of the Down county team and placing himself above that.
Former Club Players’ Association (CPA) head Micheál Briody talked during the week about players going to America and how we need to stop them.
Even the Shane Walsh transfer to a Dublin club, where his local club talked about fighting the move.
If the lad wants to go to a Dublin club, let him fire ahead.
I probably wouldn’t agree with the move myself but the way the club talked, for me they viewed Shane Walsh as a piece of property.
I don’t like talking so negatively about the club scene because it has so much good stuff going on within it too.
Skirts
But some of the bits and pieces I’ve read recently, and even in the last few years, skirts over the on field reality of the club game.
Maybe I’m being more of a realist rather than simply being negative.
Why has this talk crept up about the club and county game? The split season — that’s why.
I don’t get all the talk.
Let me rephrase that. I get it to a degree but the volume of the dissent on the shorter season has surprised me.
I get what the critics of the split season are saying but they’re totally overplaying the value of an extra month in the calen
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