Colm O’Rourke’s concerns about player welfare are valid but the obvious solution mightn’t suit county managers
Then there is the constant demand on top players, who on one level are fortunate enough to go the distance with their county in the championship and also with club. David Clifford, Footballer of the Year, played 34 matches by the time he won the junior All-Ireland with his club Fossa in January.
The greatest friction at this time of the year, however, takes place between the demands of intercounty and third-level where two of the oldest competitions in the GAA, the Fitzgibbon and Sigerson Cups, are coming to the boil. “The timing of the Sigerson is all wrong,” he said after Meath’s defeat of Clare at the weekend. “We have six players tied up in it and we had to take off five of them today. There’s two of them now injured with hamstrings. They’re pure overuse injuries. It’s a disgrace, it’s abuse of players and it shouldn’t be going on at this time.”
It is now well over 50 years since the Fitzgibbon and Sigerson were moved from their original autumn scheduling to the spring, which means that the tournaments have spent about half of their existence being played in the early months of the year. Those sympathetic to the sector would argue that ring-fencing students for their college teams for the short duration of the Fitzgibbon and Sigerson makes most sense. O’Rourke himself made the same case four years ago, as did Galway coach John Divilly, formerly a UCD Sigerson winning player and manager.
Scholarships are abundant and whereas college authorities haven’t as a rule looked for a pound of flesh when players who benefit from such schemes have been unable to play for their third-level teams, the future is uncertain.
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