It’s a tough one.
Westmeath manager Colin Kelly announced his panel for the upcoming Leinster senior football championship during the week.
Three players, in Darragh Daly, Stephen Gallagher and Joe Moran were drafted into the squad after not playing any part in the county’s League campaign.
Stand out performances for their clubs were cited as the reason for their ascent.
“This is a pet peave of mine,” said Colm Parkinson of Kelly’s decision on Thursday’s GAA Hour Show.
Wooly is thinking about the Westmeath panel here. He’s thinking about the players who’ve been there since the word go. The players who have slogged through the early season struggles. Together.
He’s thinking about the managers and how they’ve preached to their players that these gym sessions, these laps over the muddy fields are so crucially important to the team and that they’ll make all the difference come a championship game in the summer.
And then lads who weren’t there for any of that slot in like none of it even mattered.
“Let me tell you something about this, because this is the one that really gets on my nerves. Now you hear managers saying, ‘well, we’ve an open-ended panel, the panel is not finalised at all, the door isn’t shut on anyone…
“That’s all grand, but what about Strength and Conditioning since last November, and then training in January and playing in all of those pre-season games, and then playing an intense League where you might go for a pint after a game and you’re thrown off the panel.”
It’s the equivalent to the life of a monk.
“You might step out of line for a while and then you’re disciplined. You’ve seven games in nine weeks and then some fella playing club might take November, December and January off, he might do a bit of training, get himself in shape and then put it in for two or three club League games, then he shoots the lights out and he lands back into the squad with a crowd of lads who are getting flogged for the first four or five months of the year.
“It’s completely wrong,” says The GAA Hour Show host.
The Portlaoise man feels panels should be finalised early in the year and that’s that.
“If I was an inter-county manager, you’re not rejoining my panel late. No way. It’s not fair on everybody else. It’s not fair on the lads who have gone through the muck and the shit, the nutrition, the gym programmes and not stepped out of line, all the while – somebody else is out enjoying his life and he lands in late, no, it’s not right.
“I think panel members can get pretty pissed off by something like that.
And there-in lies the problem.
Drinking bans, Sunday morning training sessions, bank holiday weekends ruined – January, February and March isn’t an easy time for county players. But they’re making the sacrifices in those months so they can be there when it matters in the summer.
But then three lads are brought in from the cold. They could have been doing what they wanted for the last few months but because they played well in a club game or two of a Sunday morning, they’re in now.
To Conan Doherty it’s a blatant contradiction by managers of their own code and their own rules. Players can see through this.
“It’s funny, though. Managers are hounding club players from January, getting them to post pictures in the gym and all of that, but come to July and August – nobody cares anymore, they’re just trying to pick the best team and get them out there. Nobody cares about what went before.”
On the other hand, it’s not the three lads’ fault either. They may not have been picked for the panel at the start of the year. Their performances were obviously good enough for the manager to believe in them, to put faith in them, and at the end of the day, everybody in Westmeath wants to see the best 15 men take to the field.
You can listen to this chat and much more from Thursday’s GAA Hour Show right here.
