Under-21 footballers deserve better

On Gaelic Games:Saturday on Newstalk 106 and the talk turned to the under-21 football final, about to be played in Thurles. Part of the context for the Cork-Laois match was the suggestion that the championship should be cut in order to disentangle the early-season fixtures list.

Eugene McGee, whose peerless grasp and experience of the mysterious terrain where football meets administrative politics within the GAA makes him an authority on these matters, made a cautionary point.

He supported the rationale behind the idea (acknowledged last week by its chief proponent, GAA welfare manager Páraic Duffy, as unlikely to succeed), but added that trying to thin the games calendar was an almost impossible task.

He then accurately forecast that an uplifting final that evening in Semple Stadium would bury not just the proposal but the debate surrounding it.

It's a delicate balance: weighing the developmental benefits of the intercounty under-21 grade against the mounting pressures on players within that age category.

Competitions often float around the fixtures schedule until they find a convenient - or least inconvenient - resting place. Some, like the Railway Cup and the under-21 football championship, struggle to reach that equilibrium, although the signs are that in the absence of the International Rules series, the interprovincial competition will have a couple of autumnal weeks to itself.

The under-21s, on the other hand, have wandered around between October and May. The most recent move to have the championship played later in the year came to nothing when most provincial councils insisted on running their under-21 fixtures in the spring, leaving champions to while away months before the All-Ireland series got under way.

But the problem with the current timetable is that everything is run off in direct conflict with other fixtures, and the whole schedule places ridiculous demands on players in that very age group.

For those who are on their senior county panels there are NFL commitments, and for them and many others there is the Sigerson Cup, making February, with all its wind and rain, the busiest month of the year for young elite players even before club activity is considered. Hurling escapes this by running what has been a very successful under-21 championship throughout the summer. This is possible because of a smaller competitive field at senior intercounty level and means that the Fitzgibbon Cup isn't as crowded as the Sigerson in the spring. This scheduling also allows the matches to be played in the best weather, another enviable distinction from a football point of view.

Occasionally there is a collision on the fixtures' schedule, most famously 12 years ago when Clare sabotaged their chance of a first Munster under-21 title in order to concentrate on the senior, but for the most part there is peaceful co-existence.

Duffy mused last week that some form of restriction could be placed on the grade at intercounty level (the suggestion has never extended to clubs), such as not allowing players to be on both senior and under-21 panels. This, however, would cut across the function of the grade in the minds of many, which is to nurture elite players to the point where they are ready to step up. Given that the best of them are already on county panels and either holding down first-team places or else in demand for trial outings during the league, such a restriction wouldn't be welcomed by senior managers - as could be seen in the analogous situation during the McKenna Cup in Ulster when Tyrone manager Mickey Harte refused to co-operate with the stipulation that college teams have first call on players even if they are on county panels.

None of this is to suggest that abolition is an easy move. The grade is regarded as a vital bridge between minor and senior. The hopes and aspirations that it sustains were to be seen on Saturday evening.

The meeting of Laois and Cork was the final face-off between two cohorts who had seen plenty of each other throughout the years even before Saturday. They had already drawn with each other in two previous years, in 2006 at under-21 and two years previously in the infamous minor All-Ireland quarter-final.

They had other things in common. Laois, under Seán Dempsey, have become Leinster's top county at under-age, winning three minor All-Irelands in the past 11 years and contesting another final, as well as two under-21 deciders. It's a remarkable feat for a population recently recorded at just over 67,000, making it the second least populous county in Leinster after Longford.

Cork isn't a magnet for sympathy within the GAA and it's easy to lump the footballers into that generalisation. The most successful county in hurling since the foundation of the association, it would without that status be regarded as a pretty strong football unit. But football is a minority taste. Hurling may be similarly off the screen in strong football counties, but none of them have six senior All-Irelands in the weaker code, nor do they have 10 titles at under-21, a total that puts Cork top of the roll of honour.

There was a defiant mood among the small Cork support before the match on Saturday, as they watched the blue-and-white colours of Laois outnumber them by about six-to-one. Some grumbled about the clash with the county hurling championship and the consequent indifference that implied for the under-21s.

They're used to it. One eminent football devotee expressed his frustration at the lack of support for under-age football teams. He recalled how a push was made to secure a venue that would give the young footballers the optimum chance of some encouragement.

The result was a double bill with an All-Ireland intermediate hurling match featuring Cork. The bulk of the followers never arrived. At least not until the hurling match was due to throw in.

This was an important win for Cork, who have strung together the last four Munster under-21 titles despite not having won any of the corresponding minor championships. They mightn't have lived up to their billing, but that only intensified the relief when the match was over. Down on the field in the aftermath there was an impromptu football convocation, as Niall Cahalane, Billy Morgan, Terry O'Neill, team liaison Des Cullinane and selector John Cleary all came and went in the tumbling light. The keynote was optimism for what the players represented for the future.

Outside his dressingroom, Laois manager Seán Dempsey paid a warm tribute to his shattered players, but again the emphasis was on what they might do in seasons to come.

In the circumstances it's easy to see why there's resistance to interfering with a competition that is valued so highly as a portal to the senior game. But what are the options? The heart of the problem is the insane level of multi-eligibility for teams, which is placing enormous pressure on young players. It has to be addressed, and how do you do that without regulating demands on footballers in the under-21 age group?