ON GAELIC GAMES:They're back from the dead after three years but despite the appetite from some quarters there is no great push to keep the interprovincial series alive, writes SEÁN MORAN

IN ONE of the most spectacular comebacks since the opening scenes of Dracula, Prince of Darkness, the GAA interprovincial competitions take the stage this weekend for the first time in three seasons having been apparently buried with a stake through the heart at the annual congress of two years ago.

In the media conference that followed congress, the association president – Professor Kristor Van Cooney for the purposes of the un-dead conceit – was asked did he believe the interprovincials were effectively dead. “The short answer is ‘I do’,” he replied, adding that the following year’s congress would officially wind up the competition that had started in 1927 as the Railway Cup.

A year ago with the competition having been allocated no space on the 2011 calendar, Central Council decided to nourish the ashes a little by refusing to sign the death certificate. A strong campaign including three of the eloquent former provincial managers, Joe Kernan, John O’Mahony and John Conran, had created sufficient unease amongst the GAA’s top decision makers and a verdict was delayed until April.

At the annual congress Central Council meeting, it was decided to grant the competition its latest reprieve. The tournament had been suffering from dwindling profile since its heyday in the 1950s and hadn’t been played since 2009.

Yet it’s proved impossible to abolish. Time after time there have been threats, followed by periods of reflection and proposed reviews and consequent cunning plans but all culminating in little or no change in the status of the competition or the level of public interest.

The heyday of the interprovincials was more than 50 years ago and virtually every modern development in the world of Gaelic games has militated against its revival.

The idea that you could see the best players playing began to lose traction with the advent of television. From a players’ point of view, other opportunities for fulfilment for those not fortunate enough to be on teams contending for the All-Ireland began to emerge.

In 1971 two significant influences arrived together. The All-Ireland club championships offered an outlet that didn’t depend on how good your county was and the All Stars awards meant that individual virtuosity could be recognised. In football the International Rules series provided high-profile international possibilities. These factors have been present on and off for nearly 30 years.

Then in 1997 the move to calendar-year seasons began with hurling first, and football following four years later, and the already sizeable difficulty of finding a slot for the competitions became even more intractable. The calendar slot has moved back and forth from its traditional spring scheduling at least six times since the interprovincials irrevocably lost their St Patrick’s Day finals to the club championships.

One of the more plausible arguments in favour of retention is that players value the competitions, but even this contention has flagged over the past 20 years.

In his annual report to the 1994 congress, then director general Liam Mulvihill responded to grumblings about the cost of the interprovincials: “However the future of the competitions need not depend on financial viability; as long as the players value the representative honour of playing for their province, it should be provided for them.”

Eleven years later Mulvihill’s views aren’t quite as accepting.

“Critics have referred to the cost of playing a final abroad, but the game is certainly seen as an incentive by the players and it gives a social opportunity for some players that wouldn’t otherwise be available while adding some spice to the whole competition. In the overall scene of initiatives for players the cost to the Central Council is not huge, but some provincial councils feel that the money could be spent more wisely, and this matter is due to be debated shortly.”

In the interim the 2001 Games Administration Committee had attempted a pre-emptive strike when, under the chair of current director general Páraic Duffy, it simply produced a fixtures’ list with the Railway Cup excluded. Central Council rejected this but one provincial secretary, John Prenty in Connacht, later the same year called for the abolition of the competition on the grounds of cost.

The question of the players’ preferences arose in the context of a survey by the old Players Advisory Committee, chaired by Jarlath Burns, which indicated a desire amongst players for retention.

Yet in ranking terms it certainly comes below country (in football), county, club, college, so to take place at all it needs a clear run and that’s been provided with the GAA forced this week to switch the Mayo-Dublin refixture from this weekend so that it didn’t take out the provincial champions of both Connacht and Leinster.

Addressing the argument in his first annual report in 2008, Duffy questioned how high up the players’ priority list the competition came.

“One of the strongest arguments advanced for their retention is that our players wish the competitions to continue. But is this indeed the case? While I believe that players like the honour of representing their province, the fact is that many of our leading players do not make themselves available. It is no longer unusual for panels to include players who were not selected by their respective counties during the provincial championships.”

Regardless of the extent of player interest is there an argument that this is all harmless fun – a case of consenting adults not harming anyone? That depends on how blasé you are about the cost of the competitions. Although the interprovincials have had the support of one of the GAA’s moist dedicated sponsors, Martin Donnelly, they are not self-funding like the International Rules series and have to be further bankrolled by Croke Park.

Speaking in late 2008, then president Nickey Brennan rejected the charge that the GAA had been doing nothing to try to maintain the competitions.

“We have been supportive of the interprovincials for quite some time and it is not our decision if anything happens to the interprovincials. I want to say that at the outset. The impression has been given that the association does not care about it and nothing could be further from the truth.

“Over the last five years, the association – and when I say association I mean Croke Park and the four provincial councils – have spent in excess of €1,000,000 in the running of the interprovincials and that covers the logistics and promotion.”

The question is: how much in the current economic environment do you invest in promoting an obsolete product?