Tackling problems by changing the rules not always the answer

For a nation of people that aren't traditionally big fans of following rules, it's peculiar how Irish administrators tend to always fall back on beefing up the rule book whenever they have a problem in a particular area. The current financial crisis is a perfect example. The Irish economy, much like the euro, is in great difficulty, largely because nobody obeyed the rules when it didn't suit them to do so. The financial regulator turned a blind eye to goings on in the banking sector, the political elites that like to play Keynesian economics when times are bad wanted to keep the money flowing when times were good and so threw the rules of that code out the window, all while Irish people themselves were borrowing lots of money, in many cases by misrepresenting their financial situation and completely lying about what they wanted to use the money for. As it is in Irish society, so it is in the GAA. This year the square ball rule was badly enforced in a couple of high profile cases, so rather than work on better enforcement, the GAA is doing what they always do - changing the rules. Lately, the big issue being discussed is the training ban, which is being ignored by all parties involved. County boards are happy to turn a blind eye on one side since they can get away without funding county teams for a couple of months, while managers and trainers are happy to work away behind closed doors as long as they don't lose ground. Indeed, players themselves are eager to get going, as seen by Niall McNamee's frustration when Offaly didn't have a football manager in place by the end of October. His complaints were hardly the utterances of a man who expected November and December to be a "closed season". And so, true to form, the GAA is doing what they always do - fixing the problem by looking at the rule book. One popular current suggestion is legislating that teams cannot return to collective training until three months after they've been eliminated from the previous year's championship, thus giving all teams the same break and theoretically levelling the gap between the successful counties and those trying to catch up. However, this completely misses the point in terms of addressing the problem that the training ban was supposed to solve. The two month moratorium was brought in to take steps towards addressing player burnout by giving all footballers a clearly defined off season. Of course the directive is being widely ignored, however it's easy to see what the rule tried to achieve. However, if we take for example the case of a county who exit the championship in early July - they would thus be free to resume county training in early October. Their younger players would then spend the summer training hard with their clubs, which would be no bad thing, but would then be straight back to county training as soon as their club championship ends, thus meaning that they've had no off-season at all. In such a scenario, what is the point of an off season at all? A twelve month season is a reality regardless when various college competitions are taken into account; however at least with college competitions, players are training and playing where they live and they don't have to factor in three hours of travelling to go training any particular evening. It may not ideal, but it's considerably less draining than traversing the country three times a week. If GAA authorities genuinely want to cut down on the demands on young players, they need to reduce the number of competitions that are being played, however there seems to be little or no will to make that happen. One ideal compromise here would be to alter competitions so as to ensure that a wider spread of players take part in each. For example, club and county under-21 championships could be replaced by a "novice" championship, with the club event eligible to all players aged 23 and under who have never played senior or intermediate championship for their club and the county one to all under 23 players who never played league or championship for the county. That way the competition continues to exist for those players who come out of minor and need a stepping stone, but no longer serves as yet another demand on "elite" players who have already moved onto the next level and have no need for further development standard games. Similarly on a county stage, reworking the pre-season championships such as the O'Byrne and Walsh Cups and playing them as reserve competitions alongside the national leagues would ensure that all members of an inter-county panel would get adequate playing time, while it would also help to shorten the season, which would be a relief to hard pressed county boards. Larger squads would be needed but this could be done if there was a focus on only picking locally based players as the extra 8-10 players to make up the reserve squad and it would mean that every player would see meaningful playing time every weekend, rather than the current situation where a fringe player on the panel can end up being judged by a series of ten minute windows in challenge games. However ultimately, rather than going to the rule book, perhaps the better approach would be to go down the road of advocacy and to encourage clubs and counties to use their younger players wisely simply by clearly illustrating to them what does and doesn't constitute overwork. In all the fuss and furore about player burnout, one thing that doesn't exist is a clear guideline as to how much training and playing is acceptable for a young athlete, and how much is too much. Perhaps if clubs and counties were aware of the long term damage they were doing or indeed the risks that they were subjecting young players to, then perhaps they would approach things differently. After all, we are now in AGM season, and every young footballer or hurler has a parent who would happily attend an AGM if they thought their child's long term health was at stake. And let's face it, the "change the rule book" approach hasn't exactly got a great track record in this country - in any walk of life.