GAELIC GAMES:A SECOND provincial secretary has raised concerns about breaches of the GAA's new close-season regulations. Following on comments made by Connacht's John Prenty last week, his Munster counterpart, Pat Fitzgerald, echoes the theme in his report to next week's annual convention.

The close season was introduced last year and prohibits most intercounty activity during November and December.

“Lots of anecdotal evidence would suggest that these new rules were totally ignored in some counties both at adult and under-age level,” according to Fitzgerald. “Challenge games and training under the guise of trials were commonplace according to the man on the street.

“If this was the case then county officials must stand up and make sure that our rule book does not become something to be discarded when it suits us. Leadership within counties is what is required.

“If that fails, then all of us within the association must either ensure that these rules are rescinded or adhered to.”

Fitzgerald also defends the reintroduction of seeding into the provincial football championship after 17 years of the open draw.

“While the “perceived weaker counties” called foul at this decision, maybe with some justification in their minds, the question must be asked why, despite many years of investment and work, these counties are still in that position. The answer must come from within these counties.” He also called on the GAA to “examine the benefits of constant live TV coverage against the backdrop of tightening the ability of our counties to run their club competitions”.

Fitzgerald pledges that the Munster council will make greater numbers of family tickets available for its fixtures this year.

He also questions whether the inter-provincial competitions can survive given the tight scheduling of the modern fixture list and is critical of the lack of support the competition has received from officials.

“With the GAA intercounty games calendar stretching from January to September and club competitions already squeezed it is hard to see where a reasonable time slot can be found for the competition to survive. It was disappointing to see so few of our council members and county officers or indeed some of those who regularly shout loudest in favour of the retention of these competitions, in attendance at either the semi-finals held in Fermoy or the final in Portlaoise.”

Fitzgerald also expresses concern at the amount of time spent dealing with issues going to the GAA’s independent arbitration forum, the Disputes Resolution Authority. “I am restricted from commenting on the DRA as we currently have a case before it, but suffice it to say that much time is spent in dealing with these cases which could be more productively used for the benefit of the association.”

Meanwhile, Ulster secretary Danny Murphy in his report to annual convention is extremely critical of television coverage of the games within Northern Ireland. “The position of television is a continuing cause for concern and the past year saw a very stressful involvement with the BBC. They covered most of the games, but except for the Ulster Championship there was a lack of organisation in how coverage was planned. Too often it was a last-minute decision that allowed games to be covered.

“Work is underway in attempting to find an acceptable formula, but it requires everyone to be actually interested in a solution, but, to date, the only people pursuing a solution are the GAA. The coverage, or lack of coverage, depending on your perspective, from UTV is alarming and it appears that they are effectively abandoning action coverage of Gaelic games.”

Murphy also calls for Australian Rules to be categorised as a competing sport. “ . . . we have observed with dismay the concerted efforts of the AFL clubs and their agents working to entice our best talent to join their game to the detriment of our association. We have blurred the position by choosing players from the AFL to play for our international team and we seem to be powerless to prevent a so-called partner from targeting our best talent.

“We are told that without this partnership things would be worse. I doubt it. The position of the GAA over the years is that we have had to live with other sports competing for our players, but it is something that we have largely succeeded in combating because we declared them as competitor sports. Why should the AFL be treated differently?”