Duffy just hoping to generate debate

Player welfare manager presentation:The GAA's player welfare manager Paraic Duffy has clarified the purpose of his presentation on the playing of club fixtures, and that the limiting of county training sessions, or doing away with the junior and intermediate intercounty championship, is still some ways off.

Duffy outlined his ideas at Saturday's Central Council meeting, the exact intention of which, he says, has been misinterpreted in some quarters. Rather than advocating such measures, his presentation was designed solely to generate debate on the issue.

"This is only a discussion document, and I want to make that clear," said Duffy. "It's not a set of proposals. The whole idea of it is to initiate some discussion among provincial councils, county boards, and clubs, around this whole issue of club fixtures, and the fact that clubs are left for long periods in the summer without any serious matches.

"There is a real concern out there in a lot of counties that come the summer months and the championship, the county scene just takes over. Take the example of Tipperary, who this summer played six Sundays in a row. Even if counties are playing every second weekend, the club championship in a lot of counties just grinds to a halt.

"It means good club players, who train just as hard, might start their championship in May, and maybe not play again until August or September.

"That's the real nub of the problem. Too many club players aren't getting the chance to play until their county is out of the championship.

"There's a lot of discontent among club players about that. What they find is they're playing a lot of their games at the start of the summer, just after the national league, and then very little activity until the senior championship."

Duffy's presentation, entitled Playing Club Fixtures: a better deal for players, included around 20 ideas on ways to improve the current situation.

Limiting county training sessions, and doing away with the junior and intermediate intercounty championship are among the more contentious, but other ideas include legislating for the release of intercounty players for club activity and a change in the championship system so that two defeats, including hurling, would mean automatic elimination.

His ideas stemmed from last year's presentation to the National Coaching and Medical Conference on the subject of providing a better programme of games for club players. GAA president Nickey Brennan then asked him to develop that into a discussion paper on the issue.

"As player welfare manager, I work on behalf on all players," added Duffy, "and the feeling is the intercounty programme has prevented club players from getting a proper programme themselves. This is looking at ways of addressing that, and all sorts of issues come into play.

"There are about 20 different ideas, and a whole range of possibilities. In fairness, you could argue that one of the main problems is the structure of competitions. If you take the football qualifiers and the round-robin in hurling there are more senior activity now in the summer than there ever was.

"Of course, that's good in some ways, but we still have to get the balance right - the need of the clubs, and the needs of the counties."

Duffy is currently taking his presentation to the Competitions Control Committee and the provincial councils, where counties and clubs will be given the opportunity to discuss the points raised. Counties and provinces are being asked to submit their views and proposals by August 24th, after which Management Committee will take ownership of the issue and prepare specific proposals.

In concluding, Duffy hoped it would generate some healthy debate: "I cannot emphasise enough that this document is not a set of proposals. It is a discussion document to facilitate all units in seriously addressing a major issue for the association.

"The hope is that the paper will encourage key interest groups to seriously consider ways of improving the situation.

"It doesn't matter if all of the ideas floated here are rejected, as long as more effective alternatives are proposed. Complaining about the current situation, without offering possible solutions, is no longer an option."

The issue of limiting county training sessions has been raised before, at both county and provincial level, and inevitably drew its critics, not least of all because of the problems in regulating any such limits.

Tyrone football manager Mickey Harte, who deliberately limits the number of his county training sessions to two a week, has advocated such a proposal, yet the majority of managers still maintain that on the road to success, less is certainly not better than more.