GAELIC GAMES:THE ISSUE of the close season needs to be readdressed, according to the man who chaired the Task Force on Burnout. Dr Pat O'Neill was commenting on the growing chorus of dissent, especially among county managers, against one of the task force's principal proposals, the shut down of the inter-county season in November and December.
“I think that the incidence of burnout has been reduced without the problem being fully addressed,” he says of the overall impact of the recommendations accepted two years ago.
O’Neill, who won All-Irelands with Dublin as both player and manager, also believes the whole inter-county football season needs to be reassessed with a view to streamlining fixtures and the old NFL schedule of fixing matches in the autumn should be revived.
“I don’t think that the old system was such a bad idea,” he told The Irish Times. “The vacuum in the inter-county season appears to be of concern to managers, particularly those who can’t get on with new appointments.
“I would probably prefer to see December and part of January off limits with collective training allowed in November but I acknowledge the need for rest and the importance of allowing players to switch off for a while.
“I remember when we were in charge (of Dublin in the mid 1990s) we didn’t re-appear until the middle of January, which gave a six-week rest period.”
Although there have been calls for the inter-county league season to revert to an autumn opening there are a number of reasons why this would be opposed. It creates a very fractured season, starting in October and breaking at the start of December.
O’Neill, however, believes the autumn window would satisfy the need for managers to establish their training structures and the scheduling of NFL matches would prevent training being too intensive. “One of the benefits of reverting to the old National League model of playing some fixtures before Christmas is that it would allow teams to get together but without excessive training as there would be a number of matches to play.
“It would also mean that there wouldn’t be a need to launch intensive training so early in January because there would be fewer fixtures and a certain amount of preparation would have been done.”
Although O’Neill’s ideas run counter to current concerns about the need to restrict the space allocated to inter-county fixtures in the GAA calendar he believes that something needs to be done to facilitate the proper management of teams. “Remember that by the end of August there are only two counties left in the championship, which means that September, October, November and December are all effectively off limits.
“There is another important aspect due to be highlighted shortly when the interim report of an injury surveillance initiative is published.
“Some of the findings are very interesting but it’s amazing the scale of the imbalance between training and the number of matches played.
“I can’t remember the precise figure but it’s in the region of 85:15. Burnout is a multi-factorial issue and that imbalance is part of the problem.”
One of the most contentious areas of the proposals concerns the availability of third-level students to play for their colleges in November and December despite burnout concerns being strongest in that age demographic.
“There was criticism of the Burnout report that it didn’t fully address the role of third-level games,” says O’Neill. “It’s true that the issue was debated but the response was somewhat diluted. For instance, there was a suggestion that the Sigerson and Fitzgibbon Cups be moved back to the autumn where they had been played originally until I think an outbreak of foot-and-mouth forced their postponement.
“The whole question could be revisited as part of a review of the whole fixtures structure. Playing some league fixtures before Christmas would ease pressure in the early part of the year and could free time to introduce a new championship structure, combining round-robin and knock-out, along the lines of the Football Development Committee’s proposals 10 years ago.”
