Gavin Duffy ineligibility another ‘messy situation’ for Mayo county board

Mayo's misinterpretation of the eligibility rules for intercounty transfers has left former Connacht rugby player Gavin Duffy in an eight-month state of limbo, unable to represent his county and unaware of exactly why he could not.

Having made his return to Gaelic football back in early May, Duffy was intent on making up for lost time in the green and red. He was no doubt under the illusion that his arsenal of attributes, sculpted by 13 years of professional rugby, would leave him with a healthy shot at making a breakthrough of sorts come championship 2014.

Instead he would spend the summer watching on, unsure for much of it about what exactly was preventing him from being allowed to play - as the county board and management held contrasting views over the player’s eligibility.

The reason being that Duffy, a native of the Ballina Stephenites club who transferred several years ago to his by then local Salthill Knocknacarra club in Galway, failed to meet the end of February deadline for “a person transferring outside the home county . . . who wishes to declare for his home county”.

Therefore he was ineligible to play for anybody other than his adopted club and Galway until a declaration could be submitted in January 2015.

Secret weapon

Despite a lack of clarity, or perhaps knowingly, the Mayo camp were quick to tout Duffy's pending inclusion as a secret weapon of sorts, yet in retrospect was the topic exploited as a useful distraction?

Former Mayo footballer and Duffy’s old club-mate Liam McHale says this “is another messy situation in the Mayo county board. We’re experts at it now. Gavin is a competitive individual and he wouldn’t have been coming down from Galway two or three nights a week for the craic. If he was being dragged along then that’s awful unfair to Gavin if he had no chance of playing.

“They must have known though, a Division One county, imagine if he came on in one of the games last year and wasn’t registered. It would have been forfeited. After a disappointing end to the league last year he was probably brought in for his experience and to give the thing a boost.”

Following the furore which his transfer in codes triggered, Mayo GAA claim that rival counties in the province quickly looked into the transfer and informed the Connacht council of the problem. This then alerted Mayo to the issue and, after seeking clarification, they informed the management team that Duffy could not play any part in 2014. A spokesman for the county board says the player remained on the panel because of his experience.

A spokesperson for Connacht GAA insists that the county were fully aware of the ruling from early last summer.

The 2014 management team claims that they did know upon Duffy’s arrival to the panel that “a box wasn’t ticked” in terms of the formalities of his transfer, although they were led to believe that it was something that could easily be pushed through when the time came that Duffy was ready for championship selection.

League campaign

That stage was reached at the end of the competition last summer, although the feeling within the Mayo camp was that the issue was not quite pushed enough and so the application dripped on right up until this year’s FBD league campaign - Duffy only became a legal Mayo panellist on January 12th.

Despite being named to start in an FBD league encounter on January 11th, the paper work had still not gone through at that point, and so the former Mayo minor player is still waiting to get his opportunity.

Work commitments held the 10-time international capped fullback back from a debut against Roscommon in the FBD semi-final a week later, although he did feature prominently in an A versus B game last weekend and so he could at long last make his intercounty senior bow in Sunday’s league opener against Kerry, where an experimental team is expected to line out.

An opportunity which at this stage he has certainly earned.