A Cavan club is up in arms after its ladies football and camogie league finals were both scheduled for Sunday afternoon.

Lacken says it will be boycotting the finals because they would have 11 players involved in both. The ladies football final has been fixed for 12.30pm in Mullahoran, while the camogie final is due to get underway an hour later in Killygarry.

The Lacken camogie and ladies football teams have released a statement outlining the reasons why they won't be fulfilling the fixtures unless there is a compromise reached. It reads:

The dual players of Lacken Camogie Club and Lacken Ladies GAA, with the support of their teammates in both codes are withdrawing their availability to play the division 1 football league final at 12:30pm on Sunday November 1st in Mullahoran and senior Camogie league final at 1:30pm on Sunday November 1st in Killygarry.

The reasons for this decision are outlined below.

Lacken Ladies and Lacken Camogie Club have 11 dual players expected to compete in both games. The timing alone makes this an improbable task.

Both Cavan Ladies Gaelic Football Board and Cavan Camogie Board and their sub-committees have persisted in fixing these games for the same date and within one hour of each other, and despite a number of communication to both boards, this situation has not been resolved.

Both clubs have a strong tradition in county representation, providing players, coaches and mentors to both codes. The current situation leaves a bitter taste of disgust among both clubs.

The proposed fixtures for Sunday show a lack of respect for the respective competitions and no support for dual players or in preventing player burnout.

We, as dual club, feel we must make this stand in order to keep the future of all dual clubs sacred.

The highest rate of dropout of our beloved national games occurs between the ages of 16 to 22. This is already a detriment to all ladies sport but to now insult those that care to play both is a true sign of contempt.

From a football league perspective, our Senior ladies play in a 6 team single round competition (ie not on a home & away basis) and barring a draw in either the semi-final or final the maximum number of games we can play is seven. This is not the first time our lady footballers have had to deal with this doubling up of fixtures, we had to concede a junior league match to Drumlane earlier in the summer as the county board fixtures had fixed for both our lady teams to play on the same evening & again, despite numerous emails, texts, calls no help was given or concessions allowed from the county board (for the record these games were fixed for a Wednesday night).

From a camogie league perspective, our Senior ladies play in a 4 team single round league which again barring draws in either the semi-final or final gives a maximum of five games. Lacken Camogie club have endeavoured to play these games as scheduled and only in circumstances involving the club participating in the Ulster Championship Competition have required the league final to be scheduled around our participation.

To summarise that is a maximum of twelve league games that our Senior teams have, yet we are almost into our ninth month of both competitions.

On numerous occasions in the past we have permitted our players to play camogie & football games in very close proximity to each other, however with the farcical and impossible predicament facing our players this coming Sunday it is now time to highlight the mistreatment we have endured and protect all future young dual players in our county.

We feel issues arising from playing games in such close proximity to each other (such as burnout, injuries) can no longer be ignored. Our dual players are not getting adequate recovery time and as pointed out by Dr Niall Moyna (of DCU fame) in the past, inadequate recovery time can lead to a number of very serious long term implications.

We genuinely regret the stance we have had to take as a club & especially regret denying some of our younger players the opportunity to play in a Senior county final but we hope that any genuine GAA supporter, GAA player (dual or otherwise) and players of any sport understand our predicament. We will not put our amateur players, who give so much time to their respective sports for both club and county, in harm's way anymore.

We plead on behalf of all dual and future dual players in the county that both respective county boards meet and rectify this unnecessary pressure being put on our current and future players, for this year and the years to come. 

We as a dual club are not willing to play our respective league finals until both Camogie and Ladies Football County Boards hold an official and proper meeting to ensure that an issue like this does not arise again. We want all young girls in our county to have the opportunity to play both sports without constant clashes of fixtures.

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