Paul Earley believes fixtures issue must be given priority

SEÁN MORAN

This afternoon in Croke Park the GAA will conduct a media briefing on the roll-out of the new football rules, brought forward by the Football Review Committee and passed by the GAA’s annual congress last March.

This will detail the processes rolled out to ensure that all units and players are familiar with the rules, which will come into force for the start of the new season in just under two months’ time.

Behind the scenes, however, work has been progressing on part two of the FRC’s remit, the production of a report on championship structures.

The committee meets tomorrow evening with their findings and proposals nearly finalised and due for launch in the coming weeks. One committee member who's been busy in the past couple of weeks is Paul Earley, manager of Ireland's successful International Rules team.  

Priority areas
He believes that the FRC needs to focus on two priority areas when considering the fixtures issue: the improvement of the inter-county competitive format and addressing the unhappiness of club players, whose schedules have been increasingly and adversely affected by the growing emphasis on county teams.

“Absolutely. The high percentage of players dissatisfied by fixture making is a big issue. This came through strongly in the initial survey conducted among club players in the main. They said that there weren’t enough games in the summer and that fixtures get changed on a whim so that they can’t plan anything because schedules get changed at short notice.”

The survey referred to was part of the ground breaking research conducted last year by the FRC into the concerns of ordinary GAA members and players, which formed the basis of the proposals on improving the disciplinary environment.

Among its findings on the issue of fixtures for club players were: Fifty two per cent said that adult club fixture-making in their county was either “poor or very poor”. Sixty per cent said that there was a lack of adherence to pre-arranged club fixture schedules. Sixty four said that the club season was too long and drawn out. Fifty four per cent said there were not enough club competitive games.

According to Earley, there are competing pressures involved in trying to devise a solution to these problems. The GAA has no central authority to make fixtures in individual counties and won’t be granted it so it is up to the local administrations to reform the club schedules.

“There’s no doubt about the challenge of re-organising things so that we create a ‘win-win situation’ because the emphasis on county teams has increased and the influence of inter-county managers can be seen in a lot of counties even if not everywhere.”

Increasingly common
He also says that it has become increasingly common for clubs to field without county players at various stages of the year even if the importance of championship fixtures means that clubs are unwilling to go ahead without their best players.

“In Kildare, for example, where I’m involved there were 15 league matches but the club got to field its inter-county players in just two of them.”

In the course of the international series Earley made reference to the difficulty in assembling an Ireland panel given that county championships now run later and later into the autumn. The situation doesn’t look like getting any better.

Donegal for instance have decided not to play any championship fixtures at senior or intermediate until after the county is out of the All-Ireland race.

Unlike the disciplinary issue, that of competition format is not a straightforward task of regulating behaviour. Many of the suggestions for improving the championship format will not take into account the needs of club players and vice versa.

“That’s one challenge,” says Earley. “Dual counties are another challenge. We’re not here to second guess what the GAA as a whole might want. We’ve identified issues that are of concern and it’s up to us to bring forward a variety of models that might address the situation. After that it’s up to the association to decide what direction they want to take.”