Forced to do too much too young

Player burnout:The overuse of gifted young players must be addressed by the GAA, writes Seán Moran

"This is getting bigger and bigger every year. I did not train as a sports specialist. I'm at the end of the process and they only to come to me when considering surgery. But I see hundreds a year, which means that specialists like Pat O'Neill, Noel McCaffrey and Pat Duggan must see thousands.

"There is absolutely no doubt about the connection between my work and the over-use of players. It's rare to see these injuries in a casual footballer, someone who plays for the juniors and trains once a week. In fact, you'd never see it. These aren't injuries like torn quads or pulled hamstrings that are caused by lack of activity, but wear and tear from over-use.

"The first idea of the report is dissociation of intercounty minor from the Leaving Cert. There's a fair bit of psychological and emotional pressure at this time. Players will want to play with their county minors and they'll spend their whole time studying or training or playing. Parents want to keep them focused on the Leaving Cert, managers want to keep them focused on the team. It's too much pressure. I can see it written in their faces.

"The average week for a lot of players in the age group can involve three afternoons with the school, training with county minors on Tuesday and Thursday, schools matches Wednesday or Friday, more games at the weekend, days rushing home for a bite to eat and getting a lift to training. It's no life. They're socially deprived, having to say to a girlfriend or friends on Friday or Saturday nights, 'we can't go out, I've a match tomorrow morning'.

"I think the proposals of the task force - and I wasn't a member - are the best way at present and that under-19 (intercounty) is a great idea because players are in a better frame of mind and more mature, more aware of the benefits of conditioning before taking up heavy training.

"One of the findings of Lynette Hughes's research was that 30 per cent of players returning to their clubs after being away with the county felt they were resented. I know that because I felt that way towards the Dublin fellas in Brigid's - that they weren't as enthusiastic about the club training as I'd hoped. I could feel that in myself, even though I'm supposed to be one of the people who understand this.

"They were drained."

Páraic Duffy, the GAA's Player Welfare Manager, was speaking in the context of his report on improving the club fixture schedules when he said Director General Liam Mulvihill had reminded him that just because you have built a consensus doesn't mean you'll get something through congress.

Given the missionary zeal of the clubs to reclaim both dates and players from the intercounty season, there is expected to be support for the proposals announced in this week's report. But the other document launched on Tuesday - that of the Burnout Task Force - relates to a far more critical situation, one laid bare in disturbing detail by the various statistical details presented to the task force and reproduced in its report.

Yet its proposals are far more likely to be derailed.

Already its most dramatic proposal, to suspend for two years the intercounty minor and under-21 championships in favour of a new under-19 grade, has begun to produce a low rumble of discontent.

Overall, the picture presented was one of insatiable demands being placed on young players, who already face academic pressures and in many cases the strain of being away from home for the first time.

It is a picture of over-use in the playing of matches for several teams as well as in the concomitant training schedules - before the question of inappropriate training is even considered.

The outcome of all of this is soaring rates of injury, brought about by wear and tear at an age when players are only reaching full physical maturity, as well as incidences of psychological and emotional exhaustion leading to players resenting the games.

According to one stark and shocking statistic, one in 10 players surveyed in the 16-18 age group is beginning to question their participation in Gaelic games - this at a time when sport is meant to be fun and before the serious intensity of senior level.

This statistic comes from the research work of Tyrone footballer Lynette Hughes, who in the course of her PhD studies for the University of Ulster, partly supported by the GAA, has conducted the most extensive study of burnout undertaken anywhere - over 500 players between the ages of 16 and 24.

In a presentation to the Ulster Council earlier this year, Hughes quoted an accepted definition of burnout, as being: 1) Physical and emotional exhaustion - due to intense demands of training and competition; 2) Sport devaluation - stop caring about sport and own performance;

3) Reduced achievement in sport - unable to meet goals and or lack of improvement.

According to Hughes, approximately 30 per cent of her sample suffered from "elevated physical and emotional exhaustion. This is equivalent to one in every three players. The breakdown by age-group was: 16-18 years (24 per cent), 19-21 years (31 per cent), and 22-24 years (34 per cent)."

The GAA's task force identified even more serious trends that suggest that injuries have become part of this outcome. In quoting the findings of Phil Glasgow, the Sports Institute of Northern Ireland's Head Physiotherapist, this week's report referred to: "A greater overall injury rate in Gaelic football compared to elite players/athletes from other sports. (It should be noted that chronic overuse injuries are one of the more easily documented barometers of over-training and player burnout.)"

Glasgow also instanced greater rates of recurrent injury as well as less compliance with recovery programmes.

The submission to the task force of surgeon and former Meath All-Ireland winner Gerry McEntee (whose views are in the accompanying panel below) drew attention to the increase in surgical intervention for chronic groin injuries - in his view an "undoubted" consequence of over use of players.

There is an irony in the fact that whereas on the one hand the GAA is trying to cope with club players, who don't have enough matches, the association is also having to deal with the number of young players who have far too much activity in their programmes.

One of the main reasons behind the above disturbing statistics is the phenomenon of multi-eligibility within Gaelic games: the ability of talented young players to represent a host of different teams from club to college to county - and double that if they are dual players.

According to Hughes' study, 30 per cent of players surveyed were playing for at least five teams in the last competitive season.

This year has seen the example of prodigious Laois underage talent John O'Loughlin, who found himself playing for the UCD Freshers in both hurling and football as well as being on the Sigerson Cup panel. Centre back on the Laois under-21 team that reached the All-Ireland final, he was also on both the county minor football and hurling teams. At club level, he is a member of the Mountmellick minor, under-21 and intermediate hurling teams and the minor, under-21 and senior football sides.

That's 12 teams.

O'Loughlin made no complaint about his multi-eligibility and a dual talent from another county contacted by this newspaper was at best ambivalent about the task force proposals: "I know the statistics don't lie, but I think the problem is more with managers. If you've an understanding manager who'll agree to structure your training by taking into account the other work you're doing it's all right. I don't feel it's that much of a problem. You play for different teams at different times of the year." But he - and he preferred not to be identified - also acknowledged it was difficult to play to potential for a variety of teams and said that he had already had his underage career disrupted by injury.

Colm O'Rourke is on the task force. The former All-Ireland winner, coach and pundit is also principal of one of the leading football academies in the country, St Patrick's Classical school Navan. In his professional capacity he is concerned about the impact of intercounty minor on academic performance. "As a school principal I can't allow that to happen. Boys aren't as mature as girls or as good at study, as the Leaving Cert results demonstrate every year, so there's no point in making it worse."

HE ALSO ACKNOWLEDGES that many young players are likely to be the last to support the task force proposals. "My own son (Shane, already a Meath senior) would hate the idea that we'd tamper with it. If there was another six grades and he could play under-23 and under-25 as well he'd be very happy.

"The onus is on the association to protect players from themselves as much as anything. I think this is a way of doing so. People can debate this point, whether they think this grade or that grade is a good idea, but there are the medical facts you can't argue against. They're pretty clear cut. The evidence is that there is a lot of injury problems arising from the multiplicity of games and teams.

"Of course, it is only the elite, but that's all we were researching. Then people say about under-21, 'oh, it's a great avenue into senior', but so what? The whole essence of being isn't to channel fellas into intercounty footballers if their wellbeing is being compromised."

Another task force member Mickey Moran has accumulated vast experience as a player and manager at intercounty level. He currently coaches UU Jordanstown and has observed players in third-level education coping with pressures.

"There are conflicts at times," he says. "A lot of players are involved with their counties' under-21s. The trouble there is that you can have an up-and-coming manager at under-21, who views the team as a stepping stone and shop window for senior positions. He's not going to care what a young player is doing with his other teams.

"Young lads are scared and afraid and bullied and they'll do what they're told because they don't want to lose out on playing for their county. Many colleges give Wednesday afternoon off for sport, which is a great idea and we'd do a skills session with freshers and seniors.

"I've seen the situation where some players come out and they're tired because they're being dogged elsewhere. We've had sessions of ball work, maybe some games, but with coaching going on. It's fun and enjoyable. They're being taxed and challenged, but it's not tiring. I tell them then to go home and rest.

"Sometimes we have a get-together on a Friday just for an hour if they have a match on Saturday. I'd see them and they're wrecked and I'd ask: 'what happened?' "They would have been ordered down the motorway on the Wednesday for training with nothing in their stomach having done the skills session in college. Then they're asked to do absolute donkey work. They get eating at half nine or 10, get back on the road and until 11.30, 12, absolutely exhausted with football.

"Then they've class the next day and they're tired and probably dehydrated."

The clash between third-level matches and under-21 county activity has been a long-running complaint.

There has been comment that by siding with the third-level colleges so completely - the only restriction is that freshers will not be allowed play Fitzgibbon or Sigerson in the same season - the GAA has taken an elitist stance, as not everyone goes on to further education. But the under-21 intercounty championships were founded in 1964 when there were about four universities involved in the Sigerson and Fitzgibbon Cups and when the average age of senior teams was older than it is now. There are currently 41 third-level institutions affiliated to GAA competitions.

"People say, 'do away with the colleges' and that's fair enough as an argument," says Moran, "but I think it's more a natural part of their life cycle in that they have to get a qualification so they go to college.

"Gaelic games play a vital, vital role in keeping them sane, giving them that break from their studies as well as enjoyment.

"I also feel that we are an extension of their club for that time they're in college rather than have them travel back and forth, back and forth. Plus they'll get the best coaching and development with due regard for their academic work."

Whatever course this debate takes in the months between now and the January special congress that will pass verdict on it, the issue itself will not go away.

Task force chair Dr Pat O'Neill sounded an ominous note last Tuesday when pointing out the US experience and warning that such trends are generally bound for here sooner or later.

When discussing the benefits of the task force proposals, he mentioned the reduction in medical costs before adding: "We also have to consider pre-empting future litigation due to chronic injury disability that could arise if former players affected argue the GAA was negligent in how it administered its games."

Money. That usually gets everyone's attention.