Today is Lá na gClubanna, which will feature events at GAA clubs across the country, which the GAA describe as "an opportunity for the GAA to highlight the important role of members, players, supporters’ and families in our Association and for the local community to have fun. It will also provide clubs with an opportunity to engage with potential new members".
The event has also had the effect of highlighting the ceaseless tension between club and county. Both of the Sunday Independent's main GAA columnists, Joe Brolly and Colm O'Rourke, both tackle the issue this morning. O'Rourke writes that "county boards are failing clubs in many counties" and that the issue can begin to be solved by "returning the players to their clubs".
Brolly is highly critical of GAA president Aoghan O' Fearghail, contrasting the GAA president's words describing Lá na gClubanna as "a day when clubs will take centre stage" with the fact that the GAA president, in Brolly's words, "presided over a Congress that trampled on clubs and their players". At Congress, votes to move the All-Ireland finals to an earlier date and to ensure extra-time is added to all Championship games aside from provincial and All-Ireland finals both failed. Had these passed, the calendar would have been freed up for club fixtures. Brtolly brands O'Ferghail's words as "twaddle".
On this of all days, Tipperary club Borrisoleigh GAA have deleted this tweet which was critical of Tipperary senior hurling manager Michael Ryan:
The tensions between club and county board are running high at the moment in Tipperary. There is severe fixture congestion in Tipperary at the moment, as a full round of championship fixtures were postponed at the beginning of April owing to poor weather.
SHC postponed: Bgarry v Clonakenny,Drom v Church,Moneygall v Swans,Portroe v Lorrha,Mullinahone v Tderry, Holycross v Toome,Sars v Borris
— Tipp FM Sport (@TippFMSport) April 10, 2016
The round of games were not rescheduled until yesterday, a month after being called off. Tipperary were knocked out of the National League on April 3rd, and by many accounts, county players were expected to return to their clubs for a little while ahead of Tipperary's first round of the Munster Championship against Cork, on May 22nd. Michael Ryan, however, has used this time to double down, and has been training the senior hurlers extremely hard, four nights a week:
Longford football manager Denis Connerton drew attention to the other side of the argument, threatening to resign last week owing to a perceived lack of co-operation from the county board. Connerton released this statement to the Longford Leader:
This is the fourth time that a round of League Games couldn’t be completed in one day.This has hampered our preparation for the Championship as we have had to cancel numerous training sessions and at this stage we unfortunately feel that we are unlikely to win the first round versus Offaly.Therefore we feel we are now preparing for the Qualifiers and we hope our preparation for this competition will receive greater support. Our elite players deserve better.We have to ask how other county teams manage to have much greater free time leading up to their respective provincial championships and we can’t?This was never an issue in Longford before as previous management teams got ample time to prepare.Our preparation has been made seriously difficult due to the fixing of League games involving county players on the following dates: March 16th, 17th, 19th and 20th, April 8th, 9th, 10th, 13th, 19th, 23rd, 26th, 29th and May 1st.After a productive training camp abroad, funded by the players, we met with the Fixtures Committee (CCC) to voice our concerns regarding players’ welfare and fatigue and pleaded that Round 5 of the Club Leagues in Longford be postponed to aid our preparation for the first round match in Leinster.We stressed that we had already lost home venue due to Glennon Brothers Pearse Park being unable to accommodate the expected crowd for this match even though the stadium was able to facilitate a Division 1 fixture involving our neighbours Roscommon with a very large attendance.We further stated that our record in the Leinster Championship has been poor and as we celebrate the 50th Anniversary of our National League victory surely everything that is possible within our own county to enhance our young players’ chances of progressing should be done.
A seemingly endless debate.
See Also: Eamonn Kelly Revealed The Abhorrent Abuse He Received After Offaly's Defeat To Westmeath
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