Club scheduling unfair on players, says Murtagh

THE CURRENT scheduling of the All-Ireland club championships is unfair on players. That’s the view of the manager who took Crossmaglen Rangers to All-Ireland success after a replayed final five years ago.

With the perennial Armagh champions facing Westmeath’s Garrycastle in tomorrow evening’s All-Ireland final replay – the first since 2007 – Donal Murtagh said the club season was placing too many demands on teams.

“The GAA should be looking at finishing it within the calendar year,” he said. “The season is too long and drawn-out. Cross have been going at this stage for nearly two and a half years.”

The structure of the championship has always presented challenges to clubs, many of whose players are not at the elite, inter-county level but who nonetheless have to maintain extremely disciplined regimes for recreational participants.

County championships are meant to finish in September or early October, with provincial finals played in late November or early December. For the provincial champions the task of staying in training for the best part of two months – and longer if they reach the final – has always proved difficult.

“Obviously it depends on the manager,” according to Murtagh, “but sometimes you can’t give players too much time off even at Christmas because some of them may fall into bad habits. If you win the provincial title as we have done in mid-November you’ve six weeks in limbo until the new year.”

The argument against concluding the club championships on a calendar-year basis has always centred on the difficulty of finding the time to do so, particularly at a time of year when weather conditions can be unhelpful and replays frequently common.

“It mightn’t be easy,” said Murtagh, “but it needs to be looked at. The GAA’s been concerned about player burn-out but the way it’s [club championship] run at the minute, players are being asked to play provincial finals in November and then train for three or four months in bad weather to play at the most three or four matches.

“Final replays aren’t the worst of the problems because another two or three weeks won’t make that much difference, although I do remember [in 2007] being mentally tired by the whole thing. You look forward to St Patrick’s Day and getting your life back. I think it’s a bit of a lottery which teams will do best over the break. I know we’re well used to it by now but we haven’t played as well in 2012 as we did at the end of last year. In Ulster we beat Ballinderry, St Gall’s and Burren. If the All-Ireland had been played in November we’d have won it by now.”

Before managing Crossmaglen, Murtagh played for the club and was a member of Joe Kernan’s great team, which won three All-Irelands out of four in 1997, ’99 and 2000, losing Ulster semi-finals in the other years. “We were constantly on the go for about five years,” Murtagh recalled.

Another point he feels should be considered when planning the club season is the effect on county teams. “There’s always a problem of club versus county. It’s extreme in our case because we’re involved so often but Paddy O’Rourke [Armagh manager] must be disappointed that he can’t get access to our players.”

O’Rourke would presumably echo that, as his team isn’t clear of relegation concerns and he hasn’t been able to call on important players like Aaron Kernan and Jamie Clarke while they’ve been involved with Crossmaglen – an involvement that now stretches until effectively the end of Armagh’s league.

Although motions on the subject have been submitted to GAA congress in the past, the scheduling of the club championships would not require a change of rule.