GAA expects county teams to respect training ban, says Feargal McGill
Feargal McGill: "I don't expect managers to be happy, far from it, but that's a very different thing to whether it is practical or not"
Friday 5 June 2020 20:36, UK
The GAA has released their roadmap for return-to-play, with club games taking precedence.
County championships will have 11 weeks to be run off, before intercounty action resumes in mid-October.
As part of the roadmap, intercounty teams will not have access to their players until September 14, and the GAA top brass said this may not sit well with managers who are looking to prepare their sides.
So is it realistic to expect county set-ups to adhere to their ban on training before mid-September?
"I think it's very realistic," said Feargal McGill, the GAA's director of player, club and games administration.
"There is a cake here that has to be divided among a massive amount of participants. The overwhelming body of participants are club players so I think on any terms, if you are given a full month to prepare a team, that's plenty.
"We would love to be able to give intercounty team managers more, we would love to be able to give the club more. It is just not possible in the constraints.
"I think it's practical. I don't expect managers to be happy, far from it, but that's a very different thing to whether it is practical or not."
I don't expect managers to be happy, far from it, but that's a very different thing to whether it is practical or not.
Club window
The GAA are confident there is ample time put aside this summer for club players.
"What we have done is created a window, it is 11 weeks if you count them, 11 weeks for the club player," explained McGill.
"We have also put the club player first in line. It will fall down to counties about how to use those 11 weeks.
"I think we are presented with a particular problem here, a shortened calendar and we can't deliver everything we would like to deliver to either county player or club player. So everyone is going to have to just take a small bit of understanding about what we are trying to do and take a small bit of pain if you'd like."
County boards will not necessarily have to play their competitions on a straight knockout basis.
McGill said: "It is a matter for each county as to how they will run their club championships. It is up to them to come up with their structures in terms of the inter-county championship."
"I already spoke to a county secretary this afternoon and the plan in that county is to have a round robin where each will have three matches, then a quarter-final, semi-final, and a final," added John Horan. "That is totally in order, there is no drive to have knockout."
Testing
Meanwhile, as professional sports return, many are opting for mass-testing of players. Although it is an avenue the GAA explored, the organisation have decided against it.
"We did think about that very carefully," said Dr Kevin Moran, who was on the association's coronavirus advisory committee.
"The early information we have form professionals in the UK, from the Premier League is that there's a very high incidence in this age group, in the young, fit under-30 age group, under-25 age group, there's a very high incidence of false positives and false negatives. I think their original assessment was there was 70 per cent accuracy rate to this test so leaving aside the logistics and that, we think that all the protocols that are put in place to minimise the risk to players picking up the infection or picking up the virus at training.
"With the protocols that we have in place, the GAA will be one of the safest places for a player to be. In fact, if you contrast that with going down to the local shopping centre or somewhere like that, the GAA pitch is probably the safest place they could be."
