News round-up: With speculation rife that the under-21 football championship might be axed as one of the measures to combat burnout in young players, there was support for the competition from a couple of quarters yesterday.

The idea of abolishing the championship has been floated by the GAA's player welfare manager Páraic Duffy as early as last October's special congress on competition changes.

Support for the under-21, now in its 44th year, came unsurprisingly at the launch of this year's championship by sponsors Cadbury.

In attendance were the GAA's commercial and marketing manager Dermot Power, Keith Higgins, who captained Mayo to the title last year and won the Hero of the Future accolade (the Cadbury equivalent of Player of the Year), and Kildare footballer Dermot Earley, one of the judges of the award scheme.

Power, standing in for association president Nickey Brennan, who was unwell yesterday, said the work group shortly to be announced and whose remit is to look into the issue of burnout, had not jumped to any conclusions about the under-21 championship and the speculation hadn't impacted on the sponsorship at all.

"The issue of player burnout is an issue that is being addressed. Páraic has raised it a number of times. But for some reason the under-21s seems to have become the whole focus of that discussion, which is a little bit unfair. There is an issue about players having too many matches at particular periods of the year and I think that is going to be reviewed but to suddenly suggest that the under-21 is suddenly going to be the focus of it is just something that has emerged.

"The way I understand it, a considerable number of competitions are going to be looked at - of which the under-21 is one, but by no means is it being zeroed in on."

Higgins, a prime candidate for burnout in his under-21 career as he is also a hurler, argued the grade provides a useful space in which minors can develop as footballers.

"I wouldn't like to see it go. It's a big competition. If you look at fellas coming out of minor at 18, they mightn't break through to senior straight away. What else will they do except go back to their clubs. For that reason it's a great level for lads to express themselves. They come out three years after minor and they'd have matured a lot, come on and got bigger. It's a great championship for fellas to progress on to senior."

Both he and Earley felt the heart of the matter was restraint by managers in terms of the demands placed on players qualified to play for several teams.

"Last year was an example between under-21, college and senior and playing hurling as well," said Higgins of his heavy schedule last year. "I could have been training seven or eight nights a week if that was possible. I think communication is what matters. If managers can talk to each other and hammer out a schedule - I mean all you need to be doing is three or four nights a week. Sometimes I benefited from that; sometimes I didn't. It depended on what stage the championship was at.

"It wasn't too much of an issue. There are times that you do feel tired and you'd be looking for a few nights off training and you mightn't get them but you have to look at what you're doing and manage it as best you can."

Earley made the same point and recalled that when he was at the age level, he benefited from understanding management and said that universally applied, an enlightened approach would obviate any need to do away with the championship.

"I take the point that a lot of players are involved in senior panels, college teams and under-21. But I think it doesn't have to be scrapped. If managers can look after players and accept they don't have to train on certain nights and allow them the rest, players would be fresh enough and able to partake in all three.

"I just found that when I needed to rest I rested and when I needed to train I trained. If you're playing a match midweek with your college, that's a lot more intense than any training session and will bring you on more. Managers have to realise that and say 'hold on, this guy's after playing a match with the college and he's training with the under-21s so he doesn't need a hard training session tonight with the senior team'.

"When I was under-21, Micko was there and he's a great players manager. If I went to him and said 'I'm not feeling well tonight, I'm tired' there was no problem with him. Sure there were times when I was tired but there's times now I'm tired and I'm only playing the one. A bit more time management by managers and there's no need to scrap it."