‘Players not being given opportunity to develop’

Good read im my opinion
Interesting article in todays Irish News

‘Players not being given opportunity to develop’
Gaelic Games
Peter Makem
28/10/09

As next year’s Championship fixtures have been announced, it is obvious that the GAA authorities have no intention of changing a system that amounts to an annual betrayal of the Gaelic sports people of Ireland.

By maintaining the provincial system coupled with the primacy of the knock-out system in the championship, the GAA continues to abandon the ideals of the founding fathers and has deprived generations of players from the majority of counties of the facility to develop at the highest level.

I had thought that with the recent discontent regarding the Qualifiers and the fact that the provincial system is becoming more and more of an irrelevance in the ambitions of county teams, that a fresh departure would be made.

After 100 years, the answer is still the same. The GAA says No! There can be no equality of opportunity for the GAA people of Ireland while these two factors dominate, based as they are on a system and a mindset that works backwords from the turnstiles, with players and supporters at the bottom.

The GAA, as an institution, is dominated by the provincial councils, in keeping with the old Irish tradition of provincially strong chiefs and kings and family lines creating a weak centre to the overall detriment of the country down through history.

Because of the obvious mathematical difference in the number of counties in each province and the particular growth of the various codes in these provinces, the provincial system is naturally unbalanced. GAA people on the ground have done spectacular work throughout Ireland, especially in the past half century, in creating facilities that are the envy of other codes.

But this has been betrayed by the great fault-line in the association, the construction of the competitions. The association is full of facilities, notably county grounds, but these are largely empty because of a lack of serious competition.

Ulster, for example, is a football province where all nine counties are in contention. Munster is a hurling province where Kerry is a lone footballing county with Cork 70/30 in favour of hurling. Kilkenny is a lone hurling county in Leinster since the decline of Wexford and Offaly, and Connacht is football with Galway doubling in hurling.

Up until the ‘back door’ was introduced, instead of having the freedom of all of Ireland, the nine counties in Ulster were locked into a single unity, into a straitjacket where only one county could emerge annually. And so the opportunity for teams to develop from year to year at the highest level was nipped in the bud.

This went on for 100 years, meaning in effect that it was impossible for the majority of county teams to develop at championship level. Unlike Kerry, the majority of other counties do not have the same facility to develop as they are afforded.

So the potential of the vast majority of footballers for more than a century has been cut off by the very championship that should have given them real opportunity and access. This is a genuine betrayal.

Up until a few years ago in the major competition, which is the Championship, half of all teams at all levels, county and club, hurling and football, senior and junior, were eliminated after a single game. What players really want, at all levels, is simple.

They want four or six serious, guaranteed Championship games in May and June before the knock-out stages begin.
But instead of this logical, fundamental, natural, normal development, the ‘back door’ was introduced which made an intolerable system into a pantomime and it was introduced to keep the provincial system intact and add to the
turnstile philosophy.

Players and supporters did not enter the equation. Why can’t the association provide all counties and all clubs with four or six such championship games so that they can properly develop their game in proper conditions?

Every other team sport can do this. Why force-feed teams with second-class competitions in the midwinter months of
January and February, with a National League that is only a series of glorified challenge games, but when the summer weather comes by the end of June, after a maximum of two games, half of the teams are gone for good?

Then Kerry, the landlords of football, come out of hibernation and get into shape for the glory trail, Sam Maguires, press indulgence, AllStar awards, and so on. Yet many pundits and writers and commentators go on about their business as if they were dealing with normality instead of the most unfair, unbalanced system in world sport.

They rarely, and only obliquely, refer to the inbuilt lack of equality of opportunity that has been endemic for more than a century as a sort of eccentricity in the game instead of the central issue, an inbuilt feast for some, an inbuilt famine for the majority. The Gaelic Players’ Association have gone off totally in the wrong direction. Instead of creating a campaign for equality for all teams with a proper Championship structure, they are merely working hand in glove with the flawed system, supporting privilege and provincial imbalance.

In my experience, county players are treated quite well – while they are in the Championship. Their main complaint is lack of proper Championship competition.

In hurling, the famed Munster final has almost totally lost its meaning when it doesn’t matter any longer who wins or loses, and while the five hurling counties there hammer it out between them, Kilkenny can sit back and chose their time to peak.

Twenty-one years ago I had an article published on this matter proposing a new system of equality, ‘GAA needs a Gorbachev’, but, of course, this got nowhere. I can only surmise that in the GAA mindset there is a particular sense of cause which takes total precedence over realities.

Officials and delegates see themselves as protectors of an inheritance and that to interfere or disrupt is to destroy and betray. There is also the sense of status enjoyed, a self-worth, sense of belonging, where delegates believe the doctrine of ‘more than a game’ and don’t even dare to think of change, apart from supporting the superficial things that come down from the top.

I know and converse with a lot of GAA officials. The GAA to them is a cause where the first instinct is solidarity. But such misplaced loyalty has to end because it can be an actual betrayal of the people they are supposed to represent, people who are largely victims of the cause.

The provincial councils as institutions need to be phased out and removed completely from Championship involvement. It’s time to put people before institution – an un-Irish concept, but nevertheless a necessity before another generation is neglected as their forefathers were.

GAA officials and delegates should be told relentlessly: cut out the slogans, the waffle, the empty rhetoric, the posing, and provide your people with proper access to their own games.

As next year’s Championship fixtures have been announced, it is obvious
that the GAA authorities have no intention of changing a system that
amounts to an annual betrayal of the Gaelic sports people of Ireland.

By maintaining the provincial system coupled with the primacy of the
knock-out system in the championship, the GAA continues to abandon the
ideals of the founding fathers and has deprived generations of players
from the majority of counties of the facility to develop at the highest
level.

I had thought that with the recent discontent regarding
the Qualifiers and the fact that the provincial system is becoming more
and more of an irrelevance in the ambitions of county teams, that a
fresh departure would be made.

After 100 years, the answer is still the same. The GAA says No!

There can be no equality of opportunity for the GAA people of Ireland while
these two factors dominate, based as they are on a system and a mindset
that works backwords from the turnstiles, with players and supporters
at the bottom.

The GAA, as an institution, is dominated by the
provincial councils, in keeping with the old Irish tradition of
provincially strong chiefs and kings and family lines creating a weak
centre to the overall detriment of the country down through history.

Because of the obvious mathematical difference in the number of counties in
each province and the particular growth of the various codes in these
provinces, the provincial system is naturally unbalanced.

GAA people on the ground have done spectacular work throughout Ireland,

especially in the past half century, in creating facilities that are the envy of other codes.

But this has been betrayed by the great fault-line in the association, the construction of the competitions.

The association is full of facilities, notably county grounds, but these
are largely empty because of a lack of serious competition.

Ulster, for example, is a football province where all nine counties are in contention.

Munster is a hurling province where Kerry is a lone footballing county with Cork 70/30 in favour of hurling.

Kilkenny is a lone hurling county in Leinster since the decline of Wexford and
Offaly, and Connacht is football with Galway doubling in hurling.

Up until the ‘back door’ was introduced, instead of having the freedom of
all of Ireland, the nine counties in Ulster were locked into a single
unity, into a straitjacket where only one county could emerge annually.


And so the opportunity for teams to develop from year to year at the highest level was nipped in the bud.

This went on for 100 years, meaning in effect that it was impossible for the
majority of county teams to develop at championship level.

Unlike Kerry, the majority of other counties do not have the same facility to develop as they are afforded.

So the potential of the vast majority of footballers for more than a
century has been cut off by the very championship that should have
given them real opportunity and access.

This is a genuine betrayal.

Up until a few years ago in the major competition, which is the
Championship, half of all teams at all levels, county and club, hurling
and football, senior and junior, were eliminated after a single game.

What players really want, at all levels, is simple.

They want four or six serious, guaranteed Championship games in May and June before the knock-out stages begin.

But instead of this logical, fundamental, natural, normal development, the ‘back door’ was introduced which made an intolerablesystem into a pantomime and it was introduced to keep the provincialsystem intact and add to the turnstile philosophy.Players and supporters did not enter the equation.

Whycan’t the association provide all counties and all clubs with four or
six such championship games so that they can properly develop their
game in proper conditions? Every other team sport can do this.Why force-feed teams with second-class competitions in the midwinter months of Januaryand February, with a National League that is only a series of glorifiedchallenge games, but when the summer weather comes by the end of June, after a maximum of two games, half of the teams are gone for good?

ThenKerry, the landlords of football, come out of hibernation and get into
shape for the glory trail, Sam Maguires, press indulgence, AllStar awards, and so on.

Yet many pundits and writers and commentators go on about their business as if they were dealing with normality instead of the most unfair, unbalanced system in world sport.
They rarely, and only obliquely, refer to the inbuilt lack of equality of
opportunity that has been endemic for more than a century as a sort of
eccentricity in the game instead of the central issue, an inbuilt feast
for some, an inbuilt famine for the majority.

The Gaelic Players’ Association have gone off totally in the wrong direction.
Instead of creating a campaign for equality for all teams with a proper
Championship structure, they are merely working hand in glove with the
flawed system, supporting privilege and provincial imbalance. In my experience, county players are treated quite well – while they are in the
Championship.

Their main complaint is lack of proper Championship competition. In
hurling, the famed Munster final has almost totally lost its meaning
when it doesn’t matter any longer who wins or loses, and while the five
hurling counties there hammer it out between them, Kilkenny can sit
back and chose their time to peak. Twenty-one years ago I had an
article published on this matter proposing a new system of equality,
‘GAA needs a Gorbachev’, but, of course, this got nowhere.

I can only surmise that in the GAA mindset there is a particular sense of cause which takes total precedence over realities.Officials and delegates see themselves as protectors of an inheritance and that to interfere or disrupt is to destroy and betray.

There is also the sense of status enjoyed, a self-worth, sense of belonging,
where delegates believe the doctrine of ‘more than a game’ and don’t even dare to think of change, apart from supporting the superficial things that come down from the top.

I know and converse with a lot of GAA officials. The GAA to them is a cause where the first instinct is solidarity. But such misplaced loyalty has to end because it can be an actual betrayal of the people they are supposed to represent, people who are largely
victims of the cause.

The provincial councils as institutions need to be phased out and removed completely from Championship involvement. It’s time to put people before institution – an un-Irish concept, but nevertheless a necessity before another generation is neglected as their forefathers were. GAA officials and delegates should be told relentlessly: cut out the slogans, the
waffle, the empty rhetoric, the posing, and provide your people with proper access to their own games.

Oh bollix. Just spent £3 getting the whole article off Irish News.

Ill leave both topics up and merge them later.

The provincials have had their day, at least in terms of how they relate to the all-Ireland series. Far too many inequalities.

GAA-Fan wrote:Oh bollix. Just spent £3 getting the whole article off Irish News.

Ill leave both topics up and merge them later.

I merged them GF