HE wouldn’t swap the joy that his club campaigns have given him but Chrissy McKaigue admits the obstruction to playing for his county has been frustrating.
As a result of Slaughtneil’s run to the All-Ireland club football finals of 2015 and 2017, he played just one National League game for Derry in those two years.
He and the rest of the sizeable Emmet’s contingent were notable in their absence as Derry suffered relegation in both those seasons, firstly from Division One and then from the second tier earlier this year.
That rollover of the club season into the following spring is one of the major issues that the Club Players’ Association have highlighted in the GAA’s fixtures crisis.
Aaron Kernan spoke at the launch of their national plans on Tuesday about how the situation had affected Armagh in years when Crossmaglen went all the way to St Patrick’s Day, while the impact that Cuala and Ballyea reaching this year’s All-Ireland hurling final had on Dublin and Clare was another example.
“It would be nice to have a clear picture in your mind of when a season starts and when it ends,” said McKaigue.
“I’ve missed a fair bit playing for Derry and as a player, you aspire to play at the top level. Not that I would swap the club campaign for that, but I’d like the chance to play both. That’s a big factor in terms of implementing change.
“Forget about tiered Championships and everything else – there needs to be a clear calendar of fixtures.
“Everything else can be slotted in around that. The season’s far too long and there’s no set time of the year set for a certain competition.
“As a player I find that extremely frustrating. You can’t really plan any of your personal life around that.
“Today’s shown that there are a couple of plans but mainly that after 12 months, the season’s over – club and county.
“I’ve said numerous times that the county season is way too drawn out. The club player does suffer at the expense of inter-county competitions and that shouldn’t be the case. More careful organisation can solve all those problems.”
One of the CPA’s stated aims is to create a calendar that offers the same club windows to every county, with the whole month of April to be kept free from inter-county duty nationwide.
Some counties play club Championship fixtures in April while others can have limited club activity as inter-county managers organise intensive training blocks.
The situation in Derry has improved rapidly over the last two years since a Football Review Committee was set up but McKaigue feels consistency is required across the board.
“There’s never going to be the complete perfect scenario. But the reason why the Derry fixtures have improved so much is because everything’s set in stone, they know what date the games are on, and they’re played.
“With the GAA calendar there’s so much room between certain games, and other games are condensed within a couple of days.
“There’s no consistency. If there’s a consistent plan at the start of the year with the same rules for everyone, I think everyone could accept that and there could be real progress made.”
