Monaghan stand up for manager by boycotting NHL Div 3A Final.

RMDrive wrote:MONAGHAN hurlers are no strangers to pathos, whatever about the world at large. A disproportionately high number of hurling followers were awaiting a rare introduction in Tullamore today, but for the kind of ill-luck and misfortune routinely visited upon the down-at-heel. Sharing the same bill as the Dublin v Galway relegation tie, Monaghan's Division 3A final with Fingal fell victim to ham-fisted calamity and neglect.

A dispute arose, the parties became entrenched and Croke Park washed its hands. On Tuesday morning last, Croke Park received notice from Monaghan County Board that it would not be fulfilling the fixture. The hurlers withdrew services in a show of support for their manager, Mattie Lennon, who had earlier resigned in a dispute over the scheduling of local fixtures four days from the final. Before long Croke Park had issued a revised fixtures list with the Monaghan v Fingal final stroked out and the starting time of the main game brought forward.

The Monaghan hurling officer, Sean Guinan, sees blame on all sides: he feels Monaghan acted too quickly in declaring that they wouldn't fulfil the fixture, although he is supportive of the chairman and his efforts to promote the game in recent years. After all, unlike in other smaller hurling counties like Longford and Cavan, the issue here wasn't that Monaghan were hopelessly inept. They had won all of their matches. They were well organised and convened 44 times since January. But all sides could have done more to resolve the dispute and ultimately it was the players who were left to suffer.

"I would be very disappointed with the overall input, or lack of it, from the powers that be in Croke Park," says Guinan. "I don't care if it is Division 3; it is as big a game as Monaghan would ever play. Croke Park has all this talk of development plans and promoting the game in weaker counties and that should have meant a better effort was made to have this game played, if not this Sunday then another day. At no stage did anyone in Croke Park contact me to say was there anything they could do."

He feels for the players most of all. "These are players who would be used to playing in front of 50 and, if they were lucky, maybe 100 people and it is hard for these lads to play as most are from primarily football clubs; it is not easy for them to give the time they are giving to it. We worked hard to get this game as a curtain-raiser, we worked with Fingal to try and give it a little bit of profile, and it's not something that we gave up easily. These players are genuinely devastated."

Adding to their frustration is the fact that there is no promotion from Division 3A, and no relegation from 2B, leaving Monaghan and Fingal with nothing for their efforts.

The county board has issued a lengthy defence of its actions on its website, recalling a meeting late last year with clubs where a grand fixture list was agreed and signed up to. They believe their ultimate duty is to the clubs and to honouring those fixtures although there is room for flexibility. Even after Mattie Lennon resigned, they could have called a meeting to see if the fixtures at the heart of the dispute could be moved. Instead they dug in their heels.Lennon, too, looked intransigent. Having asked for three intermediate club league games to be called off and no game played for a week in advance of the final, he turned down compromise options. Six of the nine hurlers affected were linked to one fixture and both clubs agreed to play two days earlier, on Easter Monday, to help end the crisis. That still needed to be sanctioned but the gesture had been made and Lennon refused the offer, stating he had wanted a week to prepare. Playing on Monday was only one day less.

His demands for no club activity for a week in advance of the Rackard Cup also left him at odds with the board and its commitment to the grand fixture plan. They were only willing to guarantee a four-day break. Otherwise, they argued, clubs would be adversely affected and some clubs would have only three games played in the league when the majority were up to nine.

The Monaghan hurlers are meeting this week to see where to go from here. They are still considering playing in the Rackard Cup but they need to find a management team and the episode has hurt those trying to advance hurling in a county where it will always be a hard sell.

Guinan says hurling people have a good relationship with their football counterparts. "We are well aware of our situation, we cannot survive without the support of the executive and with 27 football clubs in Monaghan, and only three hurling clubs, we rely on their support and by and large they do support us so long as what we ask for is fair. We have never made outlandish demands. This (controversy) has passed 90 per cent of the people in Ireland by but players are also aware that when similar issues arose in Cork and Waterford there were delegations travelling down from Croke Park -- whereas in the case of Monaghan not even one phone call was made. There was a golden opportunity for an outsider to come in and within a couple of hours it could have been resolved."

Last weekend, the Monaghan football team suffered relegation for the second consecutive season but no one would expect their players to take part in club games four days before a league final. "The matter regarding the forfeiture of the Division 3A final fixture is not one of a lack of support for hurling in the weaker counties but one of the completion and facilitation of a club fixture programme, which is an issue and priority in all counties," a statement from the county board declared. One admires such resolute adherence to the domestic fixtures programme -- too often it plays second fiddle to county team interests -- but in this case they looked remorselessly rigid and inflexible.

This weekend's Congress contained a motion seeking an end to the practice of counties like Monaghan relying on outside players to promote hurling. It was tabled by Warwickshire and had backing from Longford, who availed of this allowance when they won the Lory Meagher two years ago. Longford recently failed to honour a league fixture and were thrashed by Warwickshire the weekend before. But there is a realisation that they need to build their own infrastructure if they can. Presently they have only two hurling clubs, leaving them with a tiny playing pool.

After winning the Meagher Cup some players retired, some emigrated, and a couple of gardaí from Offaly who were linchpins on the team were re-stationed back home. At a recent board meeting their failure to honour the league fixture against Fermanagh was raised and nobody had an opinion. The apathy towards hurling was conveyed by the silence.

Cavan pulled out of senior hurling altogether to focus on cultivating their own underage feeder teams and return to senior competition after five years. But in Longford there is a different take, as outlined by board chairman Pat Cahill.

"There would be a view we should forget about county hurling, but the county board have a view that if lads don't have something to aspire to we are losing our way. As long as lads are interested, we hope to put out a county team as long as we could."

Frank Browne has been appointed to take over the hurlers and heal a rift that meant the county final wasn't played last year between Mostrim and Clonguish. Partly as a result of that rift no players attended the county's first training session of the year. After Browne took over in the wake of the Warwickshire hiding, they had 23 training at 8.0am on Good Friday.

Cahill says the primary obstacle is the lack of a core hurling community. They have a small population of 30,000 and the hurling percentage of that is minuscule. "We have underage hurling played in schools, indoor blitzes and all schools take part but clubs can't get the lads to play afterwards because the culture is all football or soccer. I am not sure how we can address that."

He found himself having to rustle up players for the ill-fated trip to Birmingham to hurl Warwickshire in the league in March, anxious that they honour the fixture at all costs. It had no great appeal, travelling by ferry for the weekend, but they managed to get 22 players out there. "I would never criticise the lads who played," says Cahill, "a lot of them were very young."

As Liam O'Neill steps in as the new GAA president this weekend, it will not come as a shock to see the same problems being discussed when he leaves.

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Good piece. And it certainly highlights the point I was making. Sitting down for a face to face talk could have sorted this out but too many people wanted to make a stand.

North Side Gael wrote:

Look at the piece highlighted above, what did you want the hurlers to do just accept they dug their heals in? Youd be better attacking the GAA and county board due to their lack of interest in resolving this than attacking the boys who just want equality. I feel for hurling around your club/area with you about and i dont even know where it is.

North Side Gael wrote:Two days earlier? wind your f**king football kneck in, losing a lot of respect for you now, you cant see the hurling point of view, what about the good of the hurling game you nor the county board or the gaa seem to give a dam about that!

North Side Gael wrote:Two days earlier? wind your f**king football kneck in, losing a lot of respect for you now, you cant see the hurling point of view, what about the good of the hurling game you nor the county board or the gaa seem to give a dam about that!