Romance is remote as timing of ties deters amateur development

ON SOCCER/Emmet Malone: It may not have been helped by a second round draw that failed to produce a single game between two Premier Division outfits, but there is still little escaping the conclusion after the weekend just passed that the Carlsberg sponsored FAI Cup has gone more than a little flat this year.

The problem, as it has been really since the switch to summer football, is one of timing although the difficulties seem particularly acute this year as the competition's kick-off has coincided with the efforts of the country's leading clubs to make some sort of impact in Europe.

The more persistent problem, however, remains the hopeless position that the country's leading amateur sides have been put in by the current timing of the competition's early rounds.

Their inability to compete in games played in the middle of the summer was a predictable downside to the switch in the National League season, but the extent to which they have been marginalized was all too obvious over the weekend as six games between league and non-league sides yielded 25 goals for the professional outfits and just one (Wayside Celtic's first-minute strike against St Patrick's Athletic) for the various underdogs.

A few seasons ago, that tie would have had the look of a potential shock about it, but even after taking their early lead against a badly depleted home side in Inchicore, Peter Lennon's men never really looked remotely capable of capitalising on their early lead against a technically better, physically stronger, but perhaps most tellingly, vastly fitter league side.

John McDonnell was forced to start the game with two 18-year-olds - who had until recently been playing their football at Cherry Orchard - in attack, but even they looked a cut above the defenders who were attempting to mark them.

Scarcely surprising really when you consider that the visitors had been back in training for two weeks, had played just one practice match and were obliged to start the game without a string of what would be expected to be first-team regulars because of holidays, suspensions or ineligibility.

Lennon was philosophical about it all, but it was hard to disagree when he observed that the romance was being hammered out of a competition that has had many of its best days over the past 15 years, most memorably the appearance of St Francis in the best attended final of recent times back in 1990, on the basis of strong performances by non-league sides and the interest their progress has generated.

Supporters of the National League may have suffered damage to their morale from time to time as particularly embarrassing defeats were suffered by some of the stronger teams. but at least there was interest in what was going on, which is more than could be said of last weekend's second round (the first involves only non-league clubs) as one side after another was dumped out of the competition with barely a whimper.

Asked about the present situation after Sunday's game at Inchicore, Shamrock Rovers manager Liam Buckley didn't sound like a man who attached any great urgency to restoring some of the competitiveness that has been lost from games like the one his team had just waltzed through against Carrick United of the Waterford Junior League.

In common with other managers at the bigger clubs, though, Buckley is in a position where such an upset could potentially cost him his job. So it is hardly surprising that he simply argues that the league's clubs were in the same position in European competition until a couple of years ago and that the junior and intermediate leagues must now, similarly, adapt if they want to make progress.

Asking those leagues to shift their own season is hardly realistic, though, and the present situation reflects poorly on the competition and even the wider senior set-up with the game's second most important competition being severely affected by the number of players who, for example, aren't around to play because quite reasonably they're sunning themselves somewhere on a beach.

Clearly Lennon's assertion that the people in charge don't seem to care about the damage being done to the competition can't be true, but it's up to the FAI, the clubs and Carlsberg, whose sponsorship of the competition was initially seen as a huge step forward, to get together and come up with some sort of solution.

Although it would result in a distinct loss of momentum, the most obvious way of addressing the situation would be to play the first couple of rounds of the competition in March, April and even May before resuming in the autumn when the various seasons all overlap again.

Having said the association will be looking at ways in which fixtures can be organised so that clubs competing in Europe are not penalised for achieving even very limited success, Fran Rooney should extend the scope of the review to take in the whole area of the senior game's calendar.

The problem is hardly beyond fixing, but attendances at many of the weekend's matches suggest that public interest is already waning and history has shown us time and again that it is more difficult to bring them back than to keep them on board in the first place.