MONAGHAN boss Gabriel Bannigan has no gripes with the new rules coming into Gaelic football – but admits the lack of proper preparation time has been a major frustration, with the start of the National League just a fortnight away.
In his first pre-season since taking over the reins from Vinny Corey, alongside whom Bannigan worked for the last two years, he has also had to get to grips with the raft of changes introduced.
Yet it is the tweaks made to the calendar - including the absence of the Dr McKenna Cup this year - that have made life difficult as their opening Division Two clash with neighbours Cavan looms.
“It was a tight pre-season because they could only do S&C in November, back on the pitch in December, no challenge games allowed until January.
“You can fit in three challenge games, but we’ll be lucky to get the three when you see the weather, and then we’re out for the start of the League on the 25th of January.
“On top of that you throw in Sigerson - we have nine or 10 lads involved, games being called off on a Tuesday, they miss training on a Tuesday, game’s refixed for a Friday, they miss training on the Thursday, miss the challenge game on Saturday… there’s a lot of frustration.
“When things go wrong, which they inevitably do at this time of year in terms of grounds and fixtures, there was no allowance made for that when it was decided that six weeks was enough for teams to prepare for the National League… we don’t have them for six weeks.
“Players have had skiing trips, weddings, stags, you name it, and they can’t all have them in November; life doesn’t fit into these neat little boxes that some people think they do.
“That’s a challenge, and I don’t blame the players for that, because we have to operate within the parameters we’re given, but it is frustrating when it comes to preparing a team.”
Injuries severely hampered the Farney’s 2024 League campaign as they slipped out of Division One for the first time in a decade.
Bannigan - who will have veterans Darren Hughes and Karl O’Connell at his disposal later in the League - initiated an “in-depth review with the physio and S&C team who run the programme”, and hopes that tweaks made can help avoid a repeat as they prepare for life in the second tier.
However, with a significant number of new faces likely to see game-time, the Aughnamullen man admits there is a slight sense of going into the unknown as the start of the campaign nears.
“We had a number of players, even when they came back into pre-season, who had bits and pieces of injuries and setbacks. We had to be patient with them.
“We have a lot of new players in the panel, I tried to make sure I had the best talent in Monaghan available to me, and we want to have the fittest and best-prepared group of players we possibly can.
“We’ll be giving opportunities to new players who in other years would’ve got their opportunities during McKenna Cup games, so it’s very hard to definitive in terms of what the goal is.
“When you look at Division Two, every game is winnable, and every game is losable - any manager in Division Two would say that.
“Hopefully we have a wee bit more luck on the injury front [than last year] and, if we do, I’d like to think we’ll have a decent team on the pitch.”
While many county managers still have concerns about the new rules, Bannigan insists he has been supporter of changes being made to the game from the outset.
“I’d like to have had longer to work on them, in competitive pre-season fixtures, but we’re all in the same boat…”
Yet there is one area which, as an “unintended consequence”, he feels may need to be revisited in time.
“It’s really only when we get into the League, and you have the intensity competitive games bring, that you’re really going to find out how you’re adapting, and any glaring issues with them.
“There is an extra load being putting on players’ bodies, particularly players in the middle eight - I would think that will mean we might need to be allowed to use more than five substitutes.
“I don’t think there’s a need to increase matchday panels, 26 is fine, but we probably need to be able to make more than five changes. Time will tell.”
