Local needs see bigger picture shattered - Not a ball kicked with any real degree of anger and already the GAA season is in a fine old mess. The footballers and hurlers of Cork have backed themselves into a corner and only an explosive device will clear the room now. The 'Players Grants' episode will have a sequel as the DRA agrees Congress must have a closer look. And it's announced the Disciplinary Code used throughout 2007, one the sub-units drove a coach and four through as they pleased, will prevail again this coming playing season. And then the tin hat is added - Special Congress locate the explosive device and use it to blow the 'Burnout Report' to smithereens. Okay, there are a few add-ons left to survive, but let's face it - the keystone was the removal of the under 18 and under 21 championships (at county level) and their replacement with a new under 19 championship. GAA President Nickey Brennan felt that logical thinking was absent from the debate with local emotions allowed to take over. The argument ran something along the lines that 'minor and under 21 are grades that have always been to our advantage so why should our county bother with the common good?' Of course the fight will continue to save face and get some aspects of the report to stand but when you have your president more or less confirming that 'perhaps there wasn't full consideration given to the facts put before them' and that 'Delegates came to Congress mandated having not analysed the facts.", one has to sense it is a sad day for the association. You can hardly blame the president for the lack of professionalism (poor choice of word.) displayed by the congress delegates. But it is yet another blow for him and with the year hardly upon us, the list of 'Things to Sort Out-QUICKLY' continues to grow. Last month we examined the issues in the 'Burnout Report' and commended its content to our readers. We promised to pay due attention to the 'Fixtures/Playing Calendar Report' this month but why bother? We anticipated the fallout in last month's column (we are hardly clairvoyant...) and noted: ' ....there are stormy seas ahead for the report - it appears local interests might be allowed to over-rule the most important aspects and recommendations of the report ....the media often flag such reports as the culmination of deliberations by a 'high powered committee' when nothing could be further from the truth. The committee members are all very fine and highly qualified individuals but if you think they have the position and power to ram something like the 'Burnout Report' through the various layers of GAA administration, think again'. Well, Special Congress sure put a halt to that gallop and I wonder how the report's authors feel today? Let down? Frustrated? Exasperated? Probably a mixture of all three for in keeping with a fine tradition the proposal was slaughtered without any efforts to offer solutions - just some platitudes to the authors and a nod here and there to the hard-pressed teenager. Once again, let me state that if the parents of this country had their way, the under 19 championship would roll out this season in order to give their sons an even break as they face up to the most difficult few months in their young lives. Alas, the hard calls were not made and the punches were, once again, pulled. Medical advice and presentations on the most up to date research failed to convince and so the hatchet was not required. Some of the other motions made it through but one could be cynical and guess why: - A closed season in November and December with a ban on challenge matches and collective training (big money saver...) - Inter county panels be confined to 24 for the NFL and other competitions except championship (again, big money saver...) -The introduction of a manager's charter which he must sign prior to his appointment (now, that should be a good laugh .) With the focus firmly on the curtailment of training and preparation as against the playing of games and number of championships, you can expect one of the off-shoots of this Special Congress to be a poorer standard at senior inter-county level. It will be difficult for players to display the requisite fitness levels and match practice one associated with the new NFL since they went to the single calendar year. With games and training banned in November and December the senior elite will have at most three or four games in the provincial league and perhaps ten training sessions under their belts before they hit the ground running (jogging?) for the February start to the leagues. It's over and done with then but one really has to admire the stance taken by Roscommon, the 2006 All Ireland Minor Champions. Doing some simple arithmetic, one can deduce they would have a grand chance of a winning season (provincial or national) in the 2009 under 21 Championship. Local interest should have demanded they rode into Croke Park demanding the retention of the underage championships; after all Roscommon is a county that success is slow enough to visit at provincial level, never to mind the national stage. But they looked at the strategic picture and got themselves out of the weeds, something the bigger counties rarely seem capable of doing when a bit of leadership is required. Kerry, Galway, Tipperary, Dublin and Mayo took the easy option (Mayo: 'Where have all the great minors gone?' comes to mind and part of the answer to that question, was perhaps, staring us in the face). And when you consider Ros' drove the van for the opening of Croke Park to 'foreign' sports (take a bow Tommy Kenoy and friends) one has to admire the guts of such a county board. Their sense of the situation was that something radical had to be done to save these fine young players from coaches, managers and perhaps themselves. Everybody knows that attempting to co-ordinate and log the various training and playing schedules of these players just will not work. Who would oversee it? Who will be the final arbiter when the inevitable clashes occur? The bit that really puzzles me is the lack of imagination to even experiment, to trial the proposals, see if they work and tweak or adjust as needed later. The committee had suggested that the proposal was for inter county only, gave a year lead-in time and put a two year trial basis on the table. Even those caveats failed to stop the stampede to stagnation. What a risk-taking organistaion we are. Tweet

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