INTERCOUNTY CLOSED SEASON:GAA director general Pádraic Duffy yesterday responded to recent criticism of the intercounty closed season, defending the stance to provide an eight-week rest period with the primary intention being to force a lull in collective and regimental training sessions.

Mike McGurn, the former Irish rugby team strength and conditioning coach who now works with the Armagh GAA, recently criticised the intercounty closed season that begins this Sunday and runs until January 1st, citing the lack of player supervision as “more dangerous than helpful”.

Significantly, Duffy – a former player welfare manager himself – vowed that GAA authorities would police this rule more vigorously in 2009 after unconfirmed reports of collective training last year.

The association will empower county boards to do their bidding with failure to abide by the new edict resulting in “severe financial penalties”.

“It is in rule,” said Duffy. “There are no plans to revisit it. I think what Mike was saying was he was looking in terms of the pre-season. We looked at it from the element that players need a rest.

“There is nearly a six-week gap from the first of January to the start of the league. It’s about five and a half weeks. I accept you have the secondary competitions but those competitions are not the be all and end all.

“They are part of pre-season preparation and again it’s based on medical advice (from) people like Professor Moyna and so on. We would argue strongly that in a 12-month season players need an eight-week rest.

“If you draw the analogy to the AFL, they insist that their teams can’t resume pre-season training until eight weeks after they played their last game in the competition.

“It is difficult in GAA where players play at county level and club matches after that, but we wouldn’t have changed our views on players needing a rest, we wouldn’t have changed our views at all.”

This means a cat-and-mouse scenario could conceivably develop this winter as intercounty managers endeavour to organise collective sessions away from the prying eyes of the authorities.

“We have also agreed that if necessary we will impose financial penalties on counties that break the rules,” said Duffy, who added: “We are doing that to protect the players.

“Coiste Bainisti would make a decision on the financial penalties. It would come out of their National League gate. There will be severe financial penalties.

“Our intention this time is that if counties try to go around it we will meet that head on. Chairmen and secretaries have been made aware of that, counties got a document telling them very clearly.”

Also speaking in Croke Park yesterday, chairman of the player welfare committee Dr Danny Mulvihill supported Duffy’s stance.

“It’s a closed season in one sense, but everyone still trains away in gyms and other places.

“Group training is banned. They can’t train as teams but training still goes on.

“I don’t know does it contribute to injury. Some of the most successful teams, such as Kerry, wouldn’t do anything serious after they have got to September, up to Christmas.”

After only one year with a formalised close season the player welfare committee is unable to produce definitive results just yet that the new system is a success.

“We have an injury surveillance scheme in place for the last few years, almost three years now,” continued Mulvihill.

“We have increased it this year. We have a lot of stats there. We look at injuries and the timing of those injuries. John Murphy, a physio, is in charge of that.”

Another recommendation by the player welfare taskforce was to abolish the under-21 age grade but this was rejected at Congress.

However, Mulvihill would still be in favour of this option.

“It would have been the preferred option. We have to see how things pan out now. We’ll look at the stats.”