The Club Players Association launched Monday morning in Ballyboden.
Pulling the All-Ireland finals back to the August bank holiday weekend, playing multiple games per weekend to get through the provincial championships quicker and even the eradication of Congress were mentioned as means to improving the lot of the average club GAA player.
While the representative body is still a little light on strategy they were talking a good game – with fixtures coordinator Liam Griffin in particular dropping a few truth bombs.
Speaking with SportsJOE GAA editor Colm Parkinson, the 1996 All-Ireland winning manager gave a couple of examples to hammer home the frustrations currently out there.
First he mentioned his 26-year-old son, who is so frustrated at travelling from Cork to Wexford for a poorly attended training session, that he is ready to pack it in.
Then there is the scenario in Dublin that sees a club’s league performance linked to their championship eligibility. If a club cannot maintain Division 1 status they cannot be in the senior championship, which makes things very difficult for the likes of Clontarf, who never have access to Dublin star Jack McCaffrey for their league matches.
Griffin says such struggles are quickly forgotten each September: “Who gives a shit? They won the All-Ireland.”
One solution for all these inconsistencies is an overarching fixtures body that would try and streamline and coordinate the club fixtures around the country, so that players do not spend months on end kicking their heels at the height of summer.
“There are 32 county boards, we recognise that,” said Griffin. “If I am in a bad county what is my escape clause? We need an overarching body to look at structure and say how it will work.”
On the gap between the club and intercounty games, Griffin argued that the supposed professionalism of the intercounty set-ups is down to the ridiculous amount of training they do, as opposed to any great advancements in sports science, preparation or recovery.
“It is not at a professional level. the games to training ratio is off the wall,” he said. “Intercounty games to training ratio is a joke.”
Reaction to the launch has been positive.
https://twitter.com/Jamwall7/status/818474281076228096
One of my main hopes for 2017 is that @ClubPlayerAssoc will be a success. If not, honestly think GAA will be in the doldrums within 20 years
— Sean Cremin (@SeanCremin_) January 9, 2017
Even if some people initially had trouble registering on the site.
Bit harsh. Trying to register with @ClubPlayerAssoc and I get this error message.
Plight of the club player just gets worse and worse. pic.twitter.com/TiHCjOXi8B
— Mikey Stafford (@me_stafford) January 9, 2017
You can hear Wooly’s interview with Liam Griffin and CP secretary Declan Brennan on this Wednesday’s GAA Hour.
