The split season

How can club and county co exist without clubs suffering from not having their county players? The gaa is a very unique organisation in that even the best of their players still play with their clubs and that has to be sacrosanct. There was plenty of buzz around in the summer in the competing counties and I don't think kids missed out on any of it just because they weren't in school. They are now in the envious position of seeing their county hero's up close and personal on club pitches every weekend up and down the country. 95% of players in the gaa don't play inter county and they now, finally, have more structured games and fixtures.

Intercounty managers control would ensure your idea wouldn't be a runner.

a lot of people in the media are against it , it puts them out of work , your man fogerty was still going on about clare cheating cork in the examiner 4 weeks after the event ,

and most cork people wouldn't have passed a blind bit of notice , everyone knows we were lucky with the robbie o'flynn incident ,but some of the stuff fogerty pulled out of his hat was ridiculous

donal og 100% against pat spillane basically retired because of it and has put up some nonsensical ideas of having a collage game day type build up for all ireland finals or rasing the player profile of players to market them on the same level of professional athletes

that's not what the gaa is about , we dont need to suck up to other codes or sports , just looking at clubber alone the attendances at say the kilkenny or tipp hurling championships the cork hurling or football championships or even the kerry football championship are greater then most league of ireland premier division games and some would run the likes of connacht rugby close

what's needed now is a tuesday pull out on one of the newspapers like the star used to do for the leinster senior league in soccer to highlight the club game across the country and give an in depth review of each championship

or if your team was knocked out of the championship and as i often did , attend a club game the same time as an all ireland semi final or even final

The April window was a disaster. Most counties played absolutely no championship. In Limerick there was two round of hurling and football championship. If your county player had any sort of niggle he was unavailable especially if you were playing at a lower level. Hurlers weren't allowed/discouraged from playing football.

County managers were organising warm weather training towards the end of the window as well. It did not work before it will not work now.

There may be a possibility to allow the intercounty season to extend into early August. However it would mean all county club competitions would have to standardise nationwide, for instance Kerry woukd need to get rid of there county championship structure.

In Limerick 4 round of the football championship and three round of the hurling championship have been played, the fourth round of the hurling is next weekend so after that one round of each before the QF are played

They got rid of that in Wexford this year, it's still the set up in Waterford and Carlow. It was only brought in 2020 when the window to play the games was small due to Covid lockdowns and obviously training time was less so seemed to suit well and was retained in 21 for the same reason. After 2 successful seasons the vote to retain for 2022 was about 80-20 when it went to the clubs, when things settled after Covid it was a big discussion point only a single vote kept it for 2023 and eventually the vote this year was to bin it.

The only benefit I could see was alot of clubs who had a decent preference for 1 code seemed to improve a good bit in their secondary code as they could dedicate more time to it rather than juggling both, personally I prefer the set up this year, I think it's more forgiving for injuries in that for example a 4 week hamstring injury at the wrong time could rule you out of a QF,SF and final in 1 code previously now it's spread out more across both.

But we don't market the games. At all.

We could have a 7 best goals/7 best points/7 best saves/7 best pieces of skill flooding social media every round of the league/championship from January to the QF's. But we don't.

We could get managers and one player to have an actual press conference before every league final, provincial final, and each knockout round from the QF's onwards, instead of the usual media bans. But we don't.

We could own the weekends in terms of screen time, early games at 12:45 and 3:00 on a Saturday, give GAAgo the 5:15 and 7:30 slots, have two games on a Sunday at 2:00 and 4:15, and allow a deferred game in full at 7:00 on a Sunday on whatever channel. But we don't.

We could insist as part of a TV package, a light-hearted magazine show that offer brief highlights, chats and tongue-in-cheek view of the GAA. But we don't.

We could have a structure that works in both codes that doesn't have people, usually the same media people lamenting non-promotion of the games, write off a significant part of the season as irrelevant. But we don't.

We could have 2/3 softball "get to know you and have a laugh" type interviews plastered all over social media making start of the players. But we don't.

And instead of hammering the split-season, why not, you know, promote the county championships? If the games are what sells the GAA, why not promote games when they're on regardless of whether they're club or county?

Surely they would go a long way to promoting the games as well instead of just the hammering the split season by those with a vested interest in extending the inter-county season by those who make their money off it. What's to lose by actually trying to promote the games beyond show two matches on the Sunday game during in the championship?

Oh I know they always went be its had knock on effect on playing numbers here

Glad to see online and in "the real world" people are seeing the media narrative about the split season for what is. Imo the change has been one of the best things the GAA have ever done. You're straight into the county season in February and it's full on, growing in intensity until July. The leagues have even less relevance now which is a pity, but a necessary evil of the expanded championship

Anyone who was a club player during the "club month" knows it was an absolute disaster. You wouldn't lay eyes on your county players for the 4 weeks bar maybe if there was 2 rounds of championship on they might play one. You then sat on your hole for who knows how long after getting up to championship pace for 3 weeks.

This giving over time to other sports idea is complete drivel. Kids still watched soccer when the all Irelands were in September. What you ahve now is the peak of the hurling season (in terms of number games) in April. 2 games on telly every weekend and more available to watch but no point getting in to the GAAGo debate now. It is frustrating that you come out of that and suddenly there is only 5 games left int he year, but that's just a consequence of the number of teams you're dealing with. The current system imo does a great job of getting the most out of a sport where there are only 9/10 teams, while also giving the opportunity for the teams on the periphery to develop.

I will say the promotion of games thing is an interesting question. Obviously you have the nonsense from places like "You wouldn't even know there is a match on this weekend" or "hurling is dying" and this needs to be ignored. But more content during the week leading up to or after games is something that most fans would welcome. Like Buff Egan but much better I suppose is what I mean. The only problem is getting together a good quality product that people will watch. GaaGo launched an analysis show this year that i don't think got much traction. Maybe the market isn't there? Remember shows like breaking ball and park live, they didn't last

There was a sold out Croke Park this year too for an All Ireland semi final.

Rugby went professional in the mid 90's that is not an option open to inter county GAA. This is what exploded it's popularity. But club rugby is dead. When is the last time you saw a club rugby game on TV. Now the clubs are underage nurseries for the profession system.

I was talking to a lad that I coached for under age GAA. He played under age Rugby abd went into development squad I think it was from U16 up. He made the Munster development squads all the way to about 18 years if age. He struggled at GAA from about 18 on to bulky and too slow

He said looking back he regrets the time he put into rugby. He would probably have made the club senior football team if he stay at it. He has no team sport now. He developed at physically at a young age but was not physically big. I doubt his children will play rugby and it will ve interesting to see what will happen over the next 20 years regarding rugby and head injuries.

Ypu are incorrect. Up untill the end of the split season club championships especially in the weaker county discipline was treated as fetvit out of the way fast. County players would definitely not play the weaker code.

Most county championships consisted of winners and losers groups with a lotbof club teams o ly having three championship games and there season was ended. The split season was horrendous clubs in the Limerick county championship. Two rounds of hurling and football played in April. If your county player had a sniffle or a sore finger he would not ve allowed to play by the county managment I even saw this happen in underage competitions we lost a couple U21 games over it.

The costs were horrendous for clubs, players were back training 2nd weeknight Jamuary. You were hiri g all weather's pitches and faulities once irvtwice a week and if often had to play friendlies on these pitches as well. The team trainers had to be paid all summer long.

Now it starts in March and you can train in normal pitches.

At present in Limerick at the round robin stage if the County hurling and football champioships from Senior, Premier Intermediate, Intermediate and Junior A, there will be four rounds played.

There is still another round of Hurli g and football round robin to players QF,SF and County Finals.

Dual players in dual clubs will have played 8 games and are guaranteed 10. Most will have another two on top of that. Single code players minimum 5 and usually 6

The teams getting to the final will play minimum 7 and at least one team in that code will have played 8 games as group winners go straight to SF whoke 2nd and 3rd play a QF.

The leagues are played off during the summer without county players teams will play a other half dozen games there