UTTER MADNESS
When you see management, players and volunteers under so much pressure in February it’s time for a radical rethink
IT’S only February and already pressure is building after just one round of the Allianz Hurling League. Clare is just one of the counties feeling the heat after a defeat to Cork, especially with Kilkenny coming to Ennis.
A new management team in any county needs a bit of time and there was always a sense that it was going to be difficult for Donal Moloney and Gerry O’Connor coming in.
Whether people like to admit it or not, there was a lot of opposition to Davy Fitzgerald within Clare before he took the pulse of the dressing room and opted to step away. It was coming at him from all angles. From supporters, not happy with the style of play. From club delegates at board meetings. From his old mentor Ger Loughnane and his old teammate Brian Lohan.
Then you had the complication of county secretary Pat Fitzgerald – who seems to be a very capable administrator – working so closely with his own son at inter-county level. We’re seeing it with the Taoiseach at the moment – it’s always better to go on your own terms, but it doesn’t always work that way.
A lot of people thought Lohan and Anthony Daly were strong candidates to take over. High achievers, legendary players – they would have brought serious experience to it with Daly’s previous management of the Banner County and Dublin.
Many felt the two lads deserved a crack. But it didn’t work out for whatever reason. Now we’ve seen plenty of evidence that Under 21 success doesn’t necessarily translate to the senior grade.
Limerick at the start of the millennium were the perfect example. Back then Dave Keane moved on to the senior team but it didn’t work out. Senior is a whole different ball game.
MOLONEY and O’Connor guided Clare’s Under 21s to three All-Irelands but the idea that it would all be rosy in the camp working with a core group of the same players is nonsense. Not after the way the previous year ended with all the tension in the background and internal politics. You had a players’ meeting and split opinions. Some wanted change and Davy out; others didn’t.
And I felt that fed into the build-up to last weekend where I saw a bit of panic in their team selection. With Ballyea in an All-Ireland club hurling final, putting Tony Kelly and Jack Browne in showed immediately that they badly needed an opening round win. It’s only February, and the pressure to achieve is almost overbearing already. They deserve time to settle in – but will they get it? Is it all about the Munster Championship for Clare? Or playing a strongest team and putting a value on two points? It’s hard to know anymore. Whether it’s coming from supporters, county boards with a financial bottom line to meet, or sponsors, outside demands are filtering in. That same pressure could be seen in the Kilkenny-Waterford match which was fought at Championship intensity. Now I’m all for intensity but I thought a lot of the tackles going in were reckless. Borderline filthy. The hits, all too often, were head-high and dangerous. A lighter player like Kilkenny’s Pat Lyng was stretchered off the field in a match where the main group of players have been so well conditioned to hit hard. With each big hit that went in, the crowd were riled and the atmosphere went up a notch.
It was something similar in Wexford. A big crowd came to see Davy Fitzgerald get off to a good start with a win over Limerick.
Davy has created an energy and it was a great win. Was the most important thing to get two points – or to get 7,000 into Wexford Park because of the overheads involved in the county team?
Again, it’s hard to know any more. This weekend Clare play Kilkenny. Under Brian Cody, they seem to have the right structures in place.
For Cody, it’s about trying to get two League points. He doesn’t have to worry too much about keeping his job or most of what goes on outside the dressing room – he’s one of the lucky few in that respect. But other managements have increased pressures to worry about.
Last weekend, Offaly were hammered by Galway. You have county board officers who might be farmers, guards or civil servants and they are trying to deal with the sort of financial concerns that come with running a small business.
Professional management team outfits now come with a list of demands to keep pace – which is unsustainable.
An attempt was made to limit training or stop things with a closed season but that is often ignored. The only way to control it is with budgets. But the question arises: how do you monitor it?
More and more counties are looking for help from Croke Park. The chairman and other board officers have no idea of how to stop it. They are under so much pressure on a daily basis that they can’t plan properly in terms of club issues.
The appointment of full-time CEOs along with all the full-time staff in Croke Park all feeds into this. At some point the GAA is going to have to call stop. Especially when you see inter-county team costs hitting the €23 million mark for the first time.
I don’t think this is the structure or the fabric of the organisation that was envisaged when the association was founded.
The GPA brought treatment of players to another level. That has come via an organisation with professional, full-time staff. Same as the GAA. But the pressures at county level have filtered down to ordinary people who are trying to juggle the demands with their own jobs.
When I played, we had our seven League matches with the first few played in a relaxed period of the year before Christmas. Preparations have increased to the extent that it’s been recorded that the training-to-matches ratio for GAA players can be 13:1.
With all the gym sessions being undertaken, no wonder players are wired for these matches, as was the case at Nowlan Park last Sunday.
Whether in Clare with Moloney or O’Connor or in Offaly with Kevin Ryan, Johnny Dooley and Paul Flynn putting their necks on the line, it’s worth asking is the balance all wrong for the first week of action in February?