GAA LGFA Camogie Association Integration

Some counties are more integrated than others, or like to think they are, as you'd have seen with the debacle over the distribution of the Jps 32 million.

I cant imagine that the playing rules will be harmonised, at least not in 3 years.

Youd also need the main GAA congress to soon deal only with common things for all games, so county structures etc, and a new mens congress along with to LGFA or Camogoie ones to deal with mens competitions and playing rules

Harmonisation of transfers and discipline maybe could happen, but good god, in just 3 years?? Maybe thats one that'll take a while!

Integration won't happen in the timeline that they want. Too many people will create blockades when they realise their jobs will be made extinct.

There'll be too many disgreements at the time of trying to get expenses for Women to match the expenses for Men. It'll get really, really ugly.

That’s gonna be a big surprise to a lot of people when they see fixtures still colliding added to the stuff I listed above.

My local club will be amalgamated soon - Hurling , Camogie and to lesser extent GF work very well together, and its a relationship that works well.

That will happen regardless of what happens in Croke Pk .

I do agree that the GAA has a lot to lose, while the other 2 have a lot to gain out of this, but once it happens, and its a year or 3-4 into it, i think it will all work ok.

Out of interest will the GAA/LGFA/Camogie then become joint owners of club facilities or will they still be owned by the gaa club?

Where is that result ?

Not on the Camogie Assc website?

And for what it's worth, here's one to illustrate levels of effort and commitment at club level.

My own GAA club here in Wexford operates three adult hurling teams each year. Our sister camogie club operates either two or three, depending on the numbers they have in any given year.

Last week, our hurlers had their first on-field training session of the year, after doing earlier sessions in the gym. 41 players took full part in it. A further 11 also attended but either only did a bit of it or else just watched, due to injuries etc. That makes a total of 52.

The following evening, the camogie club had the same pitch at the same time. Ten players turned up.

Again, just one instance in just one place, and I wouldn't tar the entire Camogie Association off the back of it. But it illustrates the point all the same.

Think you might be looking at results of Antrim's second team, who are in Div. 3B of the League, and who've had a couple of heavy beatings all right?

The team in question here is their first team, who are in Div. 1B, which is basically for teams ranked 7 to 12 (same as how the National Hurling League will be next year).

Camogie Assoc. website shows that they won their first match there - select "Div. 1B National League" in the dropdown menu on this page - https://camogie.ie/fixtures-results/

Does seem odd that they haven't published the result there of the match last Saturday, or awarded the points to Wexford.

Meanwhile, can't find actual results for last year's League, but Wikipedia shows that they finished third out of six, and a points difference of +16 means that they won two matches by bigger margins than they lost another two, so they weren't whipping girls then either - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_National_Camogie_League

And for what it's worth, in the League meeting between Wexford and Antrim last year, a goal from a controversial penalty is all that separated the sides: https://www.irishnews.com/sport/hurlingandcamogie/2023/04/02/news/antrim_hopes_of_reaching_final_are_ended_by_controversial_penalty_in_defeat_to_wexford-3181341/

I've no idea of the dynamics behind the scenes in Antrim camogie, but it remains strange to me that 12 players with what's normally a fairly competitive team at that level would choose to go on a hen weekend rather than go play a match.

Again, I don't know the exact dynamics or mechanics of Antrim camogie.

Perhaps it is the case that even their main inter-county side has difficulty in securing training venues and times, to the extent that 12 players became so fed up of it that they decided "sod this, I'm off".

However, if those 12 players return for their next match (this coming Saturday), then this clearly isn't the case, as the whole situation regarding training venues and times surely can't have changed too much in the space of a week.

Also, you can bet that if the hen weekend decision was indeed a form of protest ("We're so fed up with lack of access to training facilities that we're basically going on strike this weekend, and are going somewhere else instead"), then the GPA would have highlighted it as part of their ongoing campaign for better conditions for female players.

Still seems far more likely to me that these 12 players are nowhere near as committed to even the highest level of inter-county competition on offer to them as lads in my own place are to Junior Football, in a club where football isn't even our preferred code.

But despite the camogie club here having the exact pitch they wanted at the exact time they wanted, just 10 players turned up. Go figure.

The rest were hardly at a hen party?

The LGFA was founded in 1974.

Excuse my ignorance but was no ladies' football ever (formally) played prior to 1974? Or was it played within the GAA and we're talking about reintegration here?

In contrast, the Camogie Association seems to have been formed in 1904.

I'm not sure how to respond to you here.

Think I've made it clear that just because 12 inter-county players in one county choose to go on a hen weekend instead of playing a match, or just because the majority of the camogie club's playing pool in my own place choose not to attend training on the 28th of February, I'm not claiming that no women's team anywhere ever makes an effort. If that point hasn't been clear, please allow me to make it again, with added emphasis: I'm not claiming that no women's team anywhere ever makes an effort.

The two examples here do give rise to a couple of questions related to equality of opportunity and other things, though:

• Twelve Antrim camogie players had the opportunity to play a National League match last weekend, just as the Antrim hurlers have opportunities to play National League matches at this time of year, but those camogie players chose not to take it. If they also had equality by way of travel expenses for attending training, should they be able to claim for whatever sessions they attended last week, even though they had no intention of actually playing the match that weekend?
• In the club example - if it was regularly the case that just ten out of probably more than 40 camogie players were turning up for training, at a time when the pitch could be put to other use by a hurling or football squad, for how long should we wait before declaring "right girls, that's enough, you're not getting the pitch at that time any more because most of you probably won't even bother to turn up" ? Would that not instantly lead to cries of "that's not fair, we're not being given access to the pitch when we want it, but the GAA sides are getting it whenever they ask for it" ?

I'm trying to bring small kids to see an intercounty ladies football or camogie match and the basics like a venue arent available until just a few days before the match is on. Start times were only available less than a week out too, so you can't even figure out if you can go or not.

I'm sure it's down to figuring out what grounds are available. The ladies only seem to get club grounds for national league matches. Will they get county grounds after the amalgamation?

That is where the trouble is going to start at this time of year pitches may not be able for two games over a weekend (certainty not last weekend around here anyway). The ladies will want the county ground and say they are entitled to it and if they don't get it say that they are been treated as second class citizens.

Maybe but wouldn't be straight forward when you add the camogs into the mix aswell.

Ah. I browse to the next page here and I find further evidence that you just don't seem to grasp the bigger picture.

You seem to be forgetting that there are four codes, not two.

I won't write another long post here to explain exactly why your suggestion is not practical, but what you could do as an exercise yourself is have a look at the master fixtures calendars to see how many weeks are available for National Leagues in the four codes, the number of fixtures that need to be played across them, and then try fit that to a pattern of home and away on alternate weekends.

Or you could just try solve a Rubik's Cube instead, because that would actually be easier.

Just on the county grounds - there's no way you could guarantee that Wexford Park, for example, would be able to host matches on both Saturday & Sunday of a wet February week, if there was a women's match fixed for one day and a men's match fixed for the other.

So what do you do when it's obvious it can only take one match in a weekend? Do you always move the women out to another ground where they've been used to playing up until now anyway and where the generally smaller crowd can be properly accommodated, or do you have to take turns at it, such that the men are sometimes moved out of the county ground?

On inter-county player expenses and general team running costs - an issue there is that there's only so much money in the pot, and no side has yet come up with proposals to increase the pot, so allocating more to women's teams is likely to necessitate taking from the men's.

An added complication is how about ten to twelve counties carry two adult camogie squads (e.g. one at senior, and one at intermediate or junior), which in itself means twice as many players looking for travelling expenses, meals, kit, accommodation on longer trips, etc.

Let's say there was indeed "equality" of an annual €500,000 budget for each code. Would this mean the men's team getting €500,000 and the women's getting €250,000 each, leading to protests of "we're not being treated equally at all, each team is only getting half of what the men get"? Or would it mean giving €500,000 to the men and €1,000,000 to the women, which could hardly be seen as "equal" either?

Alternatively, would camogie in these counties be told they can carry one inter-county team only, leading to protests of "you're taking away the chance of inter-county play for somewhere around 25 or 30 women....they were better off before integration!" ?

Again, valid questions, concerns, and examples of things that will have to be considered along the integration pathway. Not reasons to dismiss somebody as some sort of dinosaur who's fundamentally opposed to the very idea of integration in the first place.

So what do you do when it's obvious it can only take one match in a weekend? Do you always move the women out to another ground where they've been used to playing up until now anyway and where the small crowd can be properly accommodated, or do you have to take turns at it, such that the men are sometimes moved out of the county ground?

You couldn't be moving a men's match where there may be 6-7k looking to attend while the women's team would have anything from 100-300.

For example, why not play a camogie/lgfa match before the hurling/gf match as the first game of a 'double bill'? ...

IT was done in Nowlan Park a few years ago (KK v Dub ?) before the men played Wexford?

There was a great crowd there for the second half of the camogie.

I know it means having to open the ground earlier, and stewards are there longer etc ...

Cork are doing it in the coming weeks also - so it can be done.

You sound like the local soccer League committee ---- "game is off boys, we have to save the pitch"

Save it for what !?!?! The World cup final isnt being played on it next week ffs .... Sorry, i digress...

How bad are the 'county' grounds ???

How many games a season are played on them? They couldnt take 6-8 extra games???

When was the last time an inter county match in a 'county' ground was called off due to a bad pitch??

@celt262 could also point to how neither Limerick Gaelic Grounds or Semple Stadium in Thurles are available right now either. You have me on a technicality in that the county matches that are supposed to be at these county grounds are not actually being called off, but they do have to be moved.

But I'll accept that these sort of instances are relatively rare. Will point out though that a large part of the reason why they're relatively rare is that in general, there's only one match fixed per weekend for the county grounds at this time of year. If it was regularly the case that there were two matches fixed, then difficulties would arise far more often.

Anyway, since you ask - I can't speak for other county grounds, but Wexford Park typically stages somewhere between 100 and 120 matches per year, between club and county. Four matches per weekend during club season are not uncommon. So yes, it could take in an extra six or eight games over the course of a year. But problem remains that you couldn't guarantee it could take in an extra six or eight games during February and the first couple of weeks of March, when damage caused by too much play on a wet pitch could take several weeks to heal.

Thank you for the further proof of my point about how bringing up valid and genuine considerations often leads to accusations of being anti-integration, from people who either refuse to see the bigger picture or else simply don't understand it.

Pointing out the reality that there are difficulties with having wet pitches available either two days in a row or for a double-header at this time of year does not imply you're opposed to integration. In many ways, it's actually got nothing to do with integration. Whether it's just one CCC organising fixtures & venues in an integrated association, of three different committees across three different associations, they still won't be able to change the weather or the ground conditions, and so will still have to work around it in the way that's currently done.

And by the way, you're upping the ante a bit with mention of the Dubs and Jim Gavin. The actual reference was to how certain senior inter-county camogie players were not even as committed as junior footballers in Wexford, in a club where the juniors are the second football team, and where football is not even the preferred code.

You've a real way of either twisting things or else simply not understanding them.

In the first example given here - relating to the 12 Antrim camogie players - there's been no suggestion or evidence that their decision to go on a hen weekend instead of playing a match was in any way due to uncertainty over training venues & times, or match fixtures. Indeed, appears all 12 returned to training after the hen weekend, and were available for the match they won last weekend. There were certainly many different names in the line-up for that match than there were in the team that lined out against Wexford.

In the example related to my own place - where just 10 camogie players out of a playing panel of more than 40 turned up for training - that's in no way related to uncertainty over pitch availability either. The session was scheduled two weeks earlier at exactly the time they asked for, and they already know they can have a pitch at the same time on the same evening for the rest of the year too.

On the other thing, I honestly don't know how you can infer that I claimed having just one CCC wouldn't be preferable to having three separate ones. I merely pointed out that just one CCC still wouldn't have any more control over weather and ground conditions than three separate ones would.

But hey, let's twist again.....