#2 The GAA Split Season.
The split season isn't perfect but with a few minor alterations it could be.
When things become split the results tend to be disastrous. Anyone will agree that splitting the backside of your suit trousers at your graduation whilst trying to pick up a €2 euro coin may provide for some funny nostalgia in years to come, but in the moment the consequences of your actions are less than ideal.
Our own country was partitioned into north and south in 1921, one could hardly call that a success during the height of the troubles that ensued 40 odd years later. For the more musically inclined, when Oasis broke-up in 2009 after a series of bust-ups between brothers Noel and Liam, the music world was left short one of the greatest British bands of all-time.
Judging by this run of form above the GAA Split-Season was destined to fail, but miraculously it has not.
The GAA’s ‘Fixture Task Force’ sent forward its proposal to congress to separate the club and inter-county seasons in 2021. Its aims were clear, to essentially save the club game. It stated, no interruptions due to the county game, no ambiguity over player availability and more regularity and certainty in the planning of club fixture programmes. It has undoubtedly achieved those aims.
For too long the club player was an afterthought for the association. The number of intercounty players at senior level in any county can be maxed out at 35 to 40 on a playing panel in hurling, camogie, football, and ladies’ football. The player pool at intercounty level is minute in comparison to the number of players at club level across various grades. It became unfeasible that such a small percentage of players dictated the playing schedule of so many. This had to change.
The split season guarantees a calendar for club and intercounty players. It also may guarantee the lifespan of numerous marriages and relationships up and down the country as players can plan holidays and special occasions with certainty that they can occur. Unfortunately, that still wasn’t enough for Kilkenny hurler Cillian Buckley who manged to book his wedding on July 22nd of this year, which fell a day before his team were to play Limerick in the All-Ireland Hurling Final. Buckley’s unfortunate incidence aside, a concrete calendar matters as it generally avoids such instances.
Unknowingly, Jim McGuinness the returning manager of the Donegal football team brought about a split season in Donegal in the second year of his managerial career with the county back in 2012. In his excellent book ‘Until Victory Always’ McGuinness bemoaned the fact that players were released to their clubs between intercounty games for local level matches and invariably ended up marking one another.
As the players proceeded to take lumps out of each other the tension that was created in those local club games returned to his intercounty camp and created an uneasiness that took them time to overcome. McGuinness put a stop to this by asking the county board to cease all club games whilst the inter-county team were still involved in the championship. They went onto win the All-Ireland. The seeds of the split season had been sown in the wet Donegal topsoil and this showed that it can benefit inter-county teams too.
There is a grain of truth in the arguments that the inter-county season is too condensed, and the promotion of our games is hindered by the early summer finish. However, minor changes to the schedule can achieve desirable outcomes. Pushing the All-Ireland finals out to early/mid-August will help. Greater, compulsory access to players by management teams is an answer to ensuring that the public remain invested. Finally, ensuring the likes of Mickey Harte allows players sensible downtime after say, I don’t know, winning a Club All-Ireland, would knock the player burnout debate on its head. The GAA split season is the greatest resolution on this Island second only to the Good Friday Agreement.
Fin
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