Aoife is helping to drive a better deal for female players

Talking Sport with Stephen Glennon

CHAIRPERSON of the newly formed Women’s Gaelic Players Association, Ballinderreen native Aoife Lane, says there is no need for county officials to be running for cover just yet but she believes there will come a time when the WGPA will be asking boards to sign up to a charter meeting certain requirements.

The launch of the new women’s association has attracted a great deal of coverage over the past fortnight and at the centre of it all has been Lane, a former All-Ireland double minor medal winner with Galway and daughter of hurling legend, Noel.

She explains the notion of the WGPA had originally been raised by GPA activist and former Cork hurler Donal Óg Cusack at the Camogie All-Stars a couple of years ago. Later in the evening, Lane spoke to Cusack about the prospect and it just took off from there.

Lane had already a background in this area having sat on the Player Welfare Committee set up by the Camogie Association in 2009. The aim was to promote health, safety and welfare issues along with investigate matters in relation to player injuries, injury prevention, player insurance and nutrition.

However, while the Committee “did a few nice things”, Lane, a lecturer on Exercise and Health Studies at Waterford IT, says its remit was too broad as it sought to deal with a myriad of issues relating to players from underage to adult, from club to county. The WGPA’s sphere of activity is more specific.

“By working with county players, hopefully it will have a knock on effect in that it will also benefit the club players by raising expectations and standards. You would hope that might filter down and that everyone will benefit,” she says.

The goals of the WGPA, at least to begin with, are fairly modest. Among their ‘demands’ – for want of a better word – they seek the basics of showers for their players after inter-county training and matches and providing a cup of tea and some food for the players after a session. Reasonable. Fair minded.

“It (providing the rudiments) is good in some counties but everyone is recognising now that it is not good everywhere,” says Lane, alluding to the findings of a survey they carried out. “You just had a lot of inconsistencies and unacceptable stuff really, like no showers. There were a couple of teams who didn’t even get any food after training. That should be a given. A lot of it just takes organisation.

“I know Galway camogie players had to change in a bus after a camogie match in Ennis one day. And there have been instances in other counties where players have had to pay to train on a pitch that a county board owns. Little things like that where you have to say ‘no, we are not going to tolerate it’.

“I suppose, if you have a collective voice and people are aware that you have a national group taking this on, it might make people think twice of letting it happen on both sides – the administration side and the players side.”

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.