ENDA McGinley was in charge of Errigal Ciaran’s minor team when the corridors of power decided to fix something he never felt was broken.
When he was in his late teens, he was one of the players pulled from pillar to post by managers looking their piece. Club, school, college, minor, U21, senior, it was all happening.
Those formative years were tough “but nobody ever died from it”, he says now.
A 2013 ESRI report into dropout from Irish sport had been followed up two years later by a GAA paper written by Paraic Duffy on the effect of burnout and overtraining.
They came to very different conclusions – one of which was Duffy’s own assertion that the “potential disadvantages” of an U19 inter-county championship such as the GAA are trying to impose this weekend “outweigh any potential advantages it may appear to offer”.
McGinley believes that what happened at Congress in 2016, when delegates voted to change the inter-county minor grade to U17 (which led to clubs being pushed down same path), was a disastrous mix of the two reports.
For him, there are a few key issues around the whole area.
One is that a huge number of players are finishing their underage football at 16-and-a-half.
Email sent by @ErrigalCiaran1 to clubs around Ireland asking for support for the motion to allow counties to set their own age groups for club games. Enda McGinley John McEntee, Rory Burns and the GAA's Shane Flanagan tear into the debate in tomorrow's Irish News pic.twitter.com/vToFq7gZXt
— Cahair O'Kane (@CahairOKane1) February 22, 2022
He was playing senior football for Errigal Ciaran by then, but “you couldn’t do it now, the physicality and pace of the game is at a different level.”
“Most people can realise that 16-and-a-half, as it is for half the players, is far too young to be cut adrift from youth football.
“The difference in physicality in just one year is just massive at that age. Massive. People might think we’re splitting hairs, 17 or 18, does it really matter? It’s absolutely massive.
“For U16.5s to be out training with their senior team as their only football, is the senior team environment, the dressing room and the chat and craic that goes on in there, is that even right that that should be those fellas’ only outing for football?”
U21s, he says, was “hopeless, and an U19 thing is not going to be any different to that.”
There are two different issues mixed up in the debate. U19 at inter-county will almost certainly lead to an U21 grade being reincarnated in future.
Killygarry club in Cavan have proposed a return to U18 for county teams, and they would like to see the club game aligned with that.
The push by a host of clubs, including Errigal Ciaran, to give counties autonomy to choose their own age grades for club games is wrapped up in the same conversation but is a different battle.
John McEntee came from the same era as McGinley, suffered the same issues around being pulled and dragged here and there.
He has largely the same thoughts. Like the man he so often did battle with on the pitch, he was “glad to see 22”, when the pressures of playing for so many different teams eased.
They are the norm, not the rule, and they’re well aware of it.
In an interview on the opposite page, the GAA’s Director of Coaching Games Development, Shane Flanagan sets out the association’s position on why they want to move to U19 and block counties from having the autonomy to set their own age grades at club level.
Within that, he argues that they have “identified through all of our research” that where they’re losing most players is “between 15 and 17”.
The 2013 ESRI report on player dropout cited that the GAA’s “acute” dropout issue was largely down to players abandoning the sport when they “leave school or college,” something that traditionally happens at the end of U18.
Paraic Duffy’s own paper stated that an U19 championship did not appear to be a good idea.
The 80-page GAA’s 2019 Talent Academy and Player Development Committee Report makes just one single reference to dropout, related to the build-up of physical pressures on those who are playing on multiple teams in their late teens.
McEntee disagrees with Flanagan’s argument.
“When they moved it to 17s, they left a huge gap from 17s to senior,” he argues.
“The U19 structure doesn’t have enough credibility and what’s happening is we’re losing young men every year, hand over fist, because the gap is too big to senior.
“It used to be that the biggest loss of membership was when they were U12, U14, U16 and they faded off, but now the biggest loss is at 17.
“It only takes, at that age, to be away from sport for 12 months and you don’t bother going back.
“We’re pitching young boys up against men who are big and strong and seasoned and hardy, and these are only young bucks. The level and intensity of training sits away outside of the player pathway. They’re not ready for it.
“They’re not physically ready for it, they’re sometimes not emotionally ready for it, and they’re doing harm.
“You look and say development could stretch to U19s but it’s not. Many of those young men head off to university, those that aren’t go into the world of work, and other things take priority. It’s just not working.
“The structure of having an U17 with a nod-and-a-wink at 19 or 20 just doesn’t work.”
Right at the coalface of it last year was Down goalkeeper Rory Burns. Freshly thawed out from their draw with Meath at the weekend – “I’ve never played in worse conditions” – he was back minded by his own club’s push on this debate.
Burns’ club Castlewellan along with Mayobridge and Loughinisland will all put forward the motion that would allow counties to go back to U18 should they wish.
Passing the motion would allow counties that wish to stay at U17 to do so, but allow the freedom for those who don’t to switch back.
Burns was manager of Castlewellan’s U20 team last year.
“The U19 league was a shambles,” he says.
“They had great intentions to run 19s one week, seconds the next, but they were two totally different teams. The whole thing ended up threw together.”
They won an U20B championship, which was as it traditionally is, shoehorned in at the year’s end.
Even at U20, just three of his players were ready for senior. Others they’ve earmarked in the ‘potential’ bracket. If they’re not breaking in at 19 and 20, what hope do they have if they’re out of underage at 16?
“I think the right thing to do is go back to U18,” says Burns.
“Clubs are starting to lose players. If you’re taking an U17 and there’s no U19 team, their next step is senior football.
“Very few 17-year-olds make that jump straight away nowadays. It’s hard enough when it’s U18, but that extra year can be massive for a person’s development, physically as well.
“If there’s an U17 from our club and they ran into, say, Anthony Doherty in a club game, a 17-year-old going in to hit a 28-year-old who’s been in the gym all his life, there’s only gonna be one winner. It could hurt a child, like.”
John McEntee benefitted from a club policy that no minors played senior football, whereas even in a club as prolific as Errigal Ciaran, Enda McGinley was thrown into senior football at 16.
McGinley feels that reserve competitions in Tyrone have dipped in standard and struggled in recent years, but that the Red Hand county board is among those trying to improve their attractiveness by moving games to Friday and Saturday nights.
Neither U19, U20 nor U21 are the solution in his eyes. The problem is whether the cliff-edge comes to clubs at 17 or 18, even though the GAA’s argument is now that the goalposts have moved to between 15 and 17.
“The U19 thing is simply not a runner, that’s an even worse proposal than before,” says McGinley.
“It will only be a token competition squeezed in at some stage of the year. U17 or senior football are the two options people will have.
“Most people can realise that 16-and-a-half, as it is for half the players, is far too young to be cut adrift from youth football.
“[The GAA] know that, so they’re coming up with this U19 thing, but the problem is the change they made in the first place. It’s whether Croke Park and the people who brought forward these changes are willing to admit that.
“Rather than taking that step, they look as if they’re going to push as if by leading the way at county with U19 and say ‘clubs, this is what you should be doing as well’.
“U19 may be a solution at county level but it does not apply at club level.
“For me, under-18 was a great age to play at. It always felt a very natural grade.
“18 is a very natural time to move from your underage football to adult. It works.
“Why we changed it, the only reason was this burnout report, which did not apply to club footballers.
“It’s crazy in terms of when you’re cutting players loose and leaving them with the lowest level of realistic engagement with teams, it’s now at 17 years of age.
“We’re massively increasing the likelihood of dropout and lost years for footballers. I just can’t understand it."
