Tipperary GAA Secretary says club championship games must be played during summer

Tipperary’s divisional GAA championships should be played as close to completion as possible during April.

That’s the proposal made by Tim Floyd, secretary of the County GAA Board, in his report to the board’s annual convention, which takes place at The Dome in Semple Stadium next Monday night, December 16. 

“Once the (club) championships resume in July/August they should be focussed on the county championship”, he states. 

“The divisions must accept that they have to be ready for a possible preliminary quarter final or otherwise they forfeit the back door opportunity. 

“The advantage of this schedule is that clubs knocked out of their divisional championship can look forward to the minimum of a further three games in the county later. This sustains their interest right through the summer and a realistic chance of winning a county championship trophy”.

Mr. Floyd says he has no doubt the current round robin format in the Munster senior hurling championship is good for inter-county teams, as it provides them with at least four games at provincial level, which justifies the time and money put into preparations.

It also retains the provincial championship and provides additional quality games for players and spectators.

However he says it also means an overload of games for inter-county players, starting with the Allianz League in January/February/March, straight into the club championship in April and back into the provincial championship in May/June. 

“For some inter-county players this could be up to 15 games in five months, with very little room for recovery. 

“The second negative has been the dead rubber games in the final rounds, as Waterford experienced over the first two years. The new system has the worst impact on dual counties including Tipperary where clubs like Loughmore, J.K. Brackens, Eire Óg Annacarty and Killenaule have a serious bottleneck of fixtures during the closing months.

 “It’s the third obligation by CCCC that causes me the most difficulty two years into the new system. That is ‘it must not have a negative impact on time available to play club games’. 

“This was the area that mobilised Tipperary to oppose the current system when it was introduced and in turn we put forward an alternative motion two years ago at Special Congress. We argued at the time that the new system militated against 98% of players who did not play inter-county. 

“In Tipperary we have 4,000 adult players registered, of which only 70-80 are on the County Senior Hurling and Senior Football panels. That is 2% of the adult players. 

“We argued that we could not accept a shut-down of club championship for three to four months. Hurling is primarily a summer game and the summer months are May, June and July. 

“The obligations of the CCCC were to guarantee certainty of games so players could plan around them. The current system guarantees certainty of no championship games during key summer months, except leagues”.

He says that the current system has one more year to run in 2020 and he’s sure there will be a big rush to extend it further, as it has been a major success at inter- county level and for the provincial councils. 

“We must find a way to incorporate club-only weekends during the summer months, as our club players are becoming very frustrated with the long gap between April and July/August”, he states.

For more Tipperary sport read Two of Tipperary's National Hurling League games will be televised live on Eir sport