GAELIC GAMES:ADAMANT THE burnout issue has been "put to bed" and in the same sentence stating it would be "continually monitored", outgoing GAA president Nickey Brennan addressed the ongoing fixture congestion that continues to plague the association yesterday.
Last week Ballyhale Shamrocks manager Maurice Aylward bemoaned, in these pages, the opportunity missed at congress by not realigning the underage structures by dropping under-21 and minor levels and replacing them with under-19. Aylward highlighted the plight of talented Kilkenny hurler TJ Reid, who is torn between a number of teams at this juncture of the season.
In short, Brennan’s fellow county man noted the gap between minor and senior level has been filled in recent years by the increased popularity of the Sigerson and Fitzgibbon Cups. This is being assisted by the increased numbers of students attending third level since the under-21 format was first introduced in 1964.
This week third-level college competitions are placing a heavy burden on players involved at under-21 and those who have earned the right to play in an All-Ireland club final on St Patrick’s Day.
Kilmacud Crokes would not be overly pleased to see Mark Vaughan lining out for Dublin Institute of Technology in this weekend’s Sigerson finals as injury to the Dublin forward could prove disastrous for Crokes’ chances of overcoming Crossmaglen Rangers on March 17th. Another Crokes player, Ross O’Carroll, is in a similar predicament with UCD, while the club is reported to have pulled players from the weekend’s, now postponed, under-21 championship encounter with Meath.
Brennan was asked about a possible solution and basically informed the media that there was none. “It is a very tight schedule. You all know yourselves that. It was part of our dilemma when we did look at the whole burnout side of things, when trying to get an appropriate calendar to fit everything in.
“I think to be fair to the provincial councils, and Leinster in particular, they have been very good at tweaking some of their fixtures to cope with what comes. They weren’t to automatically know Crokes would be in the All-Ireland club final.”
Brennan went on to note how the increased number of floodlit pitches have helped to ease the fixture burden. Crediting the senior Kerry management for allowing their under-21 contingent to focus on that competition, Brennan refused to actually reopen the long-festering club versus county debate.
“I take the point but I’m not getting into the argument over club and county. I think the colleges invest a fair bit in the players so they may feel they have rights as well but getting the balance right . . . We had the same discussion this time last year and I guarantee you when my successor is standing here this time next year you will be having the same discussion with him. It is not easy to cover every angle but overall I think we make a fair old fist of it.”
The news that Cadbury’s have extended their four-year sponsorship of the under-21 football championship for another three seasons comes on the back of the company’s announcement yesterday that they are “recession resilient”. That was mentioned by chief executive Todd Stitzer after a 30 per cent increase in profits for 2008.
Shane Guest, Cadbury senior brand manager in Ireland, added: “I suppose the main motivation is we’ve been associated with the GAA under-21 championship for the last four years and the link-up with ourselves and the GAA has worked tremendously well and that has been fostering a competition that was, I suppose it is fair to say, under threat over the last couple of years and now as Nickey has just said it has a solid future we are more than happy to get behind it for the next three years.”
Cadbury will be awarding 14 scholarships, two per player in seven different universities – NUI, UL, UCD, Trinity, DCU, UCC and UUJ – worth €1,000 each, supplemented by a contribution to a holiday fund. The overall worth of the Cadbury’s deal was not disclosed but Guest confirmed “it is well into the six-figure sum”.
