JOHN HAYES: Split season is working, but it would benefit from a few necessary tweaks

PART ONE

IT’S 9.45am on Sunday morning as I sit down to write this week’s column – and there are local GAA matters on my mind: the West Cork U21A football championship semi-finals later in the day.

Luckily, the weather is obliging and you couldn’t pick a better day to play football: it’s cool, dry and sunny. Perfect conditions. This makes a huge difference and it means players, mentors and supporters can look forward to the game with much more positivity. Ultimately, we all know the weather in this country is generally potluck, particularly from around mid-October to the middle of March. What this means is that the calendar to play all our competitions in semi-decent weather tightens significantly, and perhaps no competition has been abused and misused quite like the West Cork U21 championship. 

While the weather is a lottery that no-one can particularly allow for, the provision of decent quality pitches is more of a controllable. We are lucky here in Rosscarbery that we now have two good quality sand-based pitches and a small-sized astro pitch that allows us now to train any time of the year knowing we will have a decent session on a decent surface. 

On the now-rare occasions that neither grass pitch is playable, we can do something on the astro. It was not always thus – until the recent investment in the Newtown facility, the surface was a veritable quagmire in the late and early months of the year. Not having floodlights at the better quality Ardagh pitch meant our training sessions on the short evenings would deteriorate in quality the longer the season went on. Eventually, when we were sinking further and further and leaving six-inch divots in the surface, or the water was just sitting on top of the surface, we would start going cap in hand to other clubs to see if we could get a half decent pitch for a half decent session. 

The point here isn’t just to have a whinge  – okay, maybe just a little – it is to suggest that the furore about the time of year that the U21 competition is currently played is a little misguided. As stated, we know that around six months of the year are a lottery in predicting the weather, and I don’t think anyone believes we can fit club and county, adult and underage, into the remaining six months. We really do need pretty much the whole 12 months to get it all done.

Just like we have done in Ross, widespread investment in pitches is a necessity. I know Carbery GAA are pursuing the option of a full-sized astro pitch somewhere in West Cork, and this is to be welcomed. However, top-quality grass pitches are still vastly preferable – we only have to look at the quality of games over the last few years in October and November up in SuperValu Páirc Ui Chaoimh (note to sports editor –  are we contractually obliged to call it that?!) for proof. 

Having at least one foot in the retirement-from-playing grave, it’s not going to matter to me directly at this stage. However, I can state categorically, and without fear of rebuttal, that the young players that are currently in my care as Ross U21 manager deserve far better than the second pitches in Ballineen and Bandon for West Cork semi-finals. That is not meant to be disrespectful to either club; we acknowledge that they have provided us with pitches when no others could or would. 

Most of us would agree that the provision of better pitches is a must. However, we know that these facilities won’t spring up overnight, and we have to provide better for our players, young and old, in the short term also. So, what can be done? 

I am a huge advocate for the split season. It has improved the lot of the adult club players in Cork and elsewhere immeasurably. It’s not perfect, but it is a damn sight better than how it used to be: Kelleher Shield in February, first round of the championship would be in early April and after that, we were in the lap of the inter-county gods. Some people need reminding of how poorly players were treated under the old system. The current system is a huge improvement, but it could benefit from adjustments.

Firstly, scrap the split season for underage players and competitions. Splitting both at adult level makes complete sense as the senior inter-county competitions are such all consuming behemoths. This does not need to be so at U17 and U20. Young players are well capable of playing both club and county, and underage managers should not be allowed to place similar or the same demands on their players as the senior squads do. 

Secondly, a tweak to the current overall GAA calendar – push the season out by four weeks all around. The inter-county season would now start with pre-season competitions in February instead of January, and the national leagues would commence at the end of February/start of March. As a former county player, I would have very much appreciated that few weeks of training after Christmas before the games kicked off. The season would go as it currently does  – we can tinker with the championship structures another day – and the All-Ireland finals would go to the end of August again. It’s not the September date traditionalists might want, but it would bring inter-county games back to late summer/early August which all of us definitely do miss. 

So what of the clubs? Again, the leagues can start a little later but March is a nice time to start competitive football and hurling. Structure of the leagues would be in the remit of the various boards as it currently is. What of the championships? We know we need a minimum of three months for hurling and football in Cork, and that is the very least we deserve in the calendar.  For certainty, championship would be moved slightly to early or mid August, and only in the case of the county making an All-Ireland final in either code would a deferral be allowed. That would mean championships from early/mid-August to early/mid-November. This isn’t ideal, however in the overall picture I think it's a price worth paying. Long before the split season and new championship structures, I played a county junior final in November. Before that again, we had a premier minor final in January, having played the semi-final in August! Time would have to be built in for weekends when the weather isn’t suitable.

The last piece of this jigsaw to make it work would see the semi-finals of provincial club championships pushed into the new year. January and February would be the preserve of finishing the All-Ireland club championships and playing colleges and school games. To further show respect to the college competitions, we could consider precluding college players from the likes of the McGrath Cup. It is unnecessary to overload these players in this manner. A relatively small number of players would be involved with clubs and colleges, but this is no different or worse than it currently is. 

Ok, so there you have it. My tuppence worth to begin with on trying to resolve some of the issues we see in the GAA at present. I’m sure I’ll hear some opinions to the contrary after this, and I look forward to some good arguments. 

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PART TWO

It is now the Monday evening after the U21 championship semi-finals, and we are licking our wounds in Ross after a disappointing defeat to Ibane Rovers, again. No controversies or complaints this time, just beaten by a team who finished the game much stronger than we did. It was another fine game, with the lead swapping hands multiple times, and both teams played very good football at different times with some excellent players on show. However, it would be remiss of me not to say that 19 – 21 year olds having no club games at their own age group for the rest of the year is utterly wrong. We must do better by them.