Limelight beckons for clubs but only if GAA officials do their job

Inside Track with John McIntyre

FOR the past five years in particular, expenditure on the preparation of inter-county GAA teams has gone through the roof. In 2019, for instance, Tipperary forked out a staggering €1.77m on their various minor, U20 and senior hurling and football squads. This is a jaw-dropping figure, but the Premier county is in good company.

Most counties are now breeching the €1m barrier annually, leaving many perplexed as to how they can afford (or justify) that level of financing in an organisation which is supposed to be amateur. The resulting drain on resources can’t last forever and if one good thing has come out of Covid-19, it’s put some sort of handbrake on the amount of money being spent on inter-county teams.

There are only so many novel fund-raising ventures out there and the law of diminishing returns will one day come into force. Having teams been put through the training mill in October in preparation for the following summer’s championships is impossible to defend, but that’s the template now for all counties.

Basically, this level of expenditure is unsustainable while there is growing unease about the way the club scene has been almost shoved to one side in the current climate of inter-country glorification. The real power-breakers are no longer county boards but rather the likes of Davy Fitzgerald, Liam Sheedy, Mickey Harte and James Horan.

Inter-county team managers have way too much influence on what happens – or more precisely what doesn’t happen – at club level these days. Up to 2020, the trend has been for a couple of rounds of county championship matches to be played in April before months of inactivity. In some counties, there are no club games at all until their flagship hurling and football teams fall in their pursuit of either the Sam Maguire or Liam McCarthy Cups.

Whether by design or accident, the inter-county arena has just taken over and is in danger of having the same consequences on club activity as the advent of professional rugby. Club hurlers and footballers no longer have exposure during the ideal summer months as fixtures are parked in the supposedly best interests of the county.

When I was involved with the Galway hurlers from 2009 to ’11, I believed we were a professional management endeavouring to do our best for the players. Apart from the coaching and conditioning expertise, we had quality medical support, access to proven sports psychologists as well as inviting guest speakers such as Eddie O’Sullivan, Jack O’Connor and Sean Boylan to address the players.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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