MARC Ó SÉ
Kerry legend gives it straight
THERE’S NO POINT PROTECTING YOUNG PLAYERS IF THEIR CLUBS GO UNDER
EVEN on their worst days, Lispole would put it up to you. And they were giving us plenty during a West Kerry semi-final last year in Annascaul. Eventually we worked our way free and were cruising. But I wasn’t feeling so good: a tight hamstring had me worried and so I was moved from centre-half back up to full forward.
It’s a classic football switch when a fella is struggling, and I didn’t do too badly inside, managing to fluke a goal for An Ghaeltacht while I was in there. Eventually, though, I was called ashore because the leg wasn’t getting any better.
I sat down in the dugout icing the hamstring, but I wasn’t long settled when I was told I had to go back in. I knew the panel was stretched that day, but there were two young lads sitting beside me and I asked why one of them couldn’t be used.
‘Underage’, was the answer I got. They were only 16, and under current rules they can’t be played in a senior match. We brought them along for the experience that day, but there was a time when a lad of that age would have to be pitched into the action to help out his club.
It’s the way of life in smaller rural clubs: all hands really are needed on deck sometimes. But those days are gone now, so on I limped back into action against Lispole.
That memory came back to me the other day as the various rows raised at Congress continued to rage.
The talk has been of ‘Super 8’ and August dates, but one motion with huge repercussions for rural clubs like our one was defeated – and it means bad news in places around the country.
Motion number 45 was backed by five counties. It proposed that players over 16 years of age be allowed to play in adult club competitions. The age is currently, of course, over 17, but the motion fell. It attracted 41 per cent support, so was well shy of the two-thirds majority needed to get through.
That’s a huge deal for rural clubs. I read of Congress being removed from the lives of ordinary GAA people and of it meaning little to club players, but here is an example that could have made a huge difference to small, mainly country clubs all over the country.
In ones like ours, every single body counts. We don’t have the luxury of dozens of young fellas to call upon, spread across A and B and C teams.
This isn’t an issue that will distract the large urban clubs any time soon, but trust me, it’s a massive problem in rural Ireland. I see it here in Kerry, and it’s one that is only going to get worse.
I’m involved in managing An Ghaeltacht this year and I am seeing it up close. Amalgamations are now common between clubs in Kerry, and I know it’s the same way in other counties, too. This is because clubs don’t have the bodies to field teams, so in desperation two are going together trying to muster enough numbers for a team between them.
Now tell me that isn’t a topic that should be one of the main concerns to the GAA.
All the talk about the plight of clubs isn’t solving their difficulties, but this motion was one that could have made a huge difference.
And I know well the one-word answer many will have for me: burnout.
Talented young players are in danger of being over-exposed in certain circumstances, but frankly there is a much, much bigger problem here, and that’s survival.
There’s no point protecting young lads from burnout when they don’t have clubs to play for at the end of it all.
An early memory I hope I’ll always have is the 1991 West Kerry final. The youngest player on the pitch that day was a 16-year-old that went by the name of Dara Ó Cinnéide. He was a big, strong young fella who the management knew was good enough and able enough to mind himself.
He kicked three points that day, and An Ghaeltacht won their first West Kerry title since 1970.
It was a great day and Ó Cinnéide was the difference between winning and losing. We celebrated as if we had won the All-Ireland, and that was what it meant to us and our people.
If that match was played by today’s rules, we’d have won nothing.
We can talk all we want about doing what’s best by our clubs, but for those outside the big urban centres, struggling to survive is the way of life. We can’t depend on club lottos that in some places are pull-
I sat in the dugout injured but was soon forced to limp back on
ing in thousands of euro every week. We don’t have the facilities they have, but smaller clubs are now unnecessarily handicapped by this rule about players having to be over 17 to play for the seniors. It’s crippling clubs, and all it takes is one or two injuries for an entire season to be derailed. This is a nuts-and-bolts concern that is causing worry day after day. It is surely a subject that most of the delegates at Congress would have a view on, and something they know from personal experience. But the attempt to address it fell. So there can be talk and more talk about the plight of the clubs, but we missed a big chance to help them fight another day.