Gaelic Games: A good run in the Sigerson can mean four games in four days for a young intercounty player involved with the senior team. Keith Duggan reports.
The decision by Central Council to delay the semi-finals of the All-Ireland under-21 football championship gives the competition the dubious honour of being the longest on the GAA's calendar. Underage players have been the focus of concern throughout the week, with many of the country's best young players trying to divide their time between early-season training with senior county panels, regular under-21 practice and the high-octane Sigerson Cup. Each competition places different demands on the athletes, with intercounty training dedicated towards endurance while Sigerson sessions are aimed at preparing teams for one intense weekend.
"If we go well in the Sigerson," says Mayo's James Gill, "then we could be playing games Thursday, Friday and Saturday, and then Mayo have a National League game on that Sunday, so it is fairly hectic."
A student in Athlone IT, Gill is one of Mayo's most promising players and his situation is common to many intercounty players in third-level education. The sharp rise in third-level options over the past decade has led to the parallel phenomenon of college sides packed with the country's best-known young players.
"This is a particularly demanding time of year, but I am fortunate in that Pat (Holmes, the Mayo senior football manager) is very understanding and does make allowances for players involved with the Sigerson Cup. I have been attending one night a week in Castlebar until the conclusion of the Sigerson," he says.
Such is the impossibility of the timetable on young players that managers have no option but to compromise.
"You would generally have to absent lads who are playing Sigerson," says Kerry under-21 manager Jack O'Connor, whose panel have begun meeting regularly to prepare for the beginning of the Munster championship in late March.
"One of the difficulties is that in Sigerson, players are aiming to peak to play a series of games on wet, soggy pitches, training which is in complete contrast to preparation for games that will be played in the drier weather. It can be very easy to pick up an injury."
The elongated under-21 championship is another problem for O'Connor, who has had a long involvement with successful Kerry underage teams.
"It's an absolute pain. I wouldn't have agreed to take this position on had I realised what I would been dealing with. You have a situation where you build towards a provincial championship, and then some lads play senior, others might go away to work for the summer, and when you resume training it's as if it's an entirely new competition.
"It is impossible to maintain momentum over that time period. And really, you are talking about four games at the most in order to win the thing."
To O'Connor, the under-21 structure indicates a dismissive attitude towards the competition on the part of the authorities, which baffles him given that it has become a proven platform for a successful jump to senior status.
"If you take the Kerry under-21 teams of 1995/96, a significant number of those players featured on the senior All-Ireland win of 1997. And similarly, five or six of the Kerry team who won the senior All-Ireland in 2000 came through the 1998 under-21 side. I really can't see why they can't sit down and change the format to make it a cohesive and streamlined competition that could be run off in a reasonable space of time."
CONNACHT is the only province which is not running its under-21 championship in the spring, opting for a summer calendar. For James Gill, who played on last year's provincial winning Mayo side, the advantages of that are manifold.
"Last year, we won in April and had a wait until October before we played the All-Ireland semi-final. In fairness, that delay was mainly due to the foot-and-mouth epidemic, which really messed things up. Now, we were soundly beaten that day and it was said that if we had a proper run at it, things could have been different. But to be honest, Tyrone was just a much better side than us in that game and deserved to win it.
"But I am looking forward to a summer championship and it makes it easier not having to balance training along with Sigerson."
One of the contradictions of the Sigerson is that despite having teams of light, young athletes, it is generally a slog because of the time of year it is played. On the tournament weekend, conditions are almost inevitably atrocious. But exams mean it is impossible to move the competition to later in the spring, and the fact that third-level institutions resume classes as late as September more or less rules out earlier dates.
"The great thing about the Sigerson is that it's as if you are playing with your club. You get to know people so quickly, it's a brilliant competition. The time of year isn't ideal, but that's something you have to work around."
Having made his senior championship debut with Mayo last summer, Gill is already anticipating the resumption of this year's All-Ireland and is eager to atone for a season that he felt was less than auspicious.
"I just felt that senior championship football is of a certain standard and I didn't meet that standard," he says.
Sheer fatigue or burnout is a possible explanation for this, and although Gill acknowledges that he had played a lot of football by the time Mayo's campaign reached its most intense levels, he is reluctant to make any excuses.
The fact remains, however, that the current calendar places tremendous pressure on the game's best young footballers and severely curtails their off-season.
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