THE decision to ditch inter-county pre-season competitions for the coming season should be revisited, according to some of those managers at the front line as Gaelic football stands on the brink of a significant overhaul
The Football Review Committee - headed up by former Dublin boss Jim Gavin - has drawn up seven ‘core’ rule enhancement proposals, including keeping three attackers beyond the halfway line at all times, a restriction on passing back to the goalkeeper, and the new two and four-point scoring system.
After a series of behind-closed-doors ‘sandbox’ games in recent months, those proposed new rules will be trialled live, and broadcast on RTE, at an inter-provincial series in Croke Park this weekend.
However, depending on how the proposals fare – the GAA’s central council will consider them on October 26 with a view to a vote at a Special Congress on November 30 - county sides across Ireland will embark upon a crash course to get themselves up to speed before the National League begins.
And, with the potential for such huge changes ahead, managers heading up the provincial sides this weekend have questioned the wisdom of shelving all pre-season competitions.
“I hope it isn’t, because it’s a perfect environment,” said Fermanagh boss Kieran Donnelly - who is overseeing Ulster’s preparations - when asked if he felt the decision to do away with the 2025 pre-season competitions was irretrievable.
“The McKenna Cup is a brilliant competition in Ulster, we would rate it highly and it’s always fairly competitive. You couldn’t get a better chance to judge it.
“Even the fact that it’s early in January and you have a two-week window after to assess it, to see how it leads into the National League, and then maybe tailor it from that.
“I hope they will [look at it again].”
Those sentiments were echoed by Galway manager Padraic Joyce, as he prepares a Connacht select to take on Leinster in the first inter-provincial semi-final at 6pm on Friday.
“It’s very disappointing that it’s just completely taken away from us,” said the three-time Allstar, whose Tribe side lost out to Armagh in July’s All-Ireland final.
“There’s no consultation with us as managers about that stuff, but it’s a great competition for us to look at our squad players, to get lads in. We’re all trying to have these development squads in place.
“We had one last year, they played the FBD [League], lads got some great game time out of it. They got to wear a Galway jersey, their families got to go see them playing for Galway, their clubs got to see them playing.
“That’s been taken away from them, whereas in the League now, in Division One, you can’t afford to be trialling out lads in the first couple of games there because the League is so competitive, you want to try and stay in Division One.
“It’s disappointing that they’re gone, to be honest.”
Paul Shankey, the Waterford manager who is part of John Cleary’s Munster management team, agreed getting rid of pre-season competitions was a decision that should be “reassessed”.
“That was a great place to see lads in competitive games and also this year it would have been brilliant with the new rules,” said the former Meath defender.
“It made more sense to keep it, so now we have a scenario where we have to try and get challenge matches; that’s the bit I’d like reassessed but I don’t think that is going to be reassessed.
“We’re down in the south-east so it’s difficult [to arrange challenge games], that’s why I really liked the McGrath Cup last year. We got two games against Clare and Cork, Division 2 opposition, to see where the lads are.”
