Training ban hinders new GAA bosses

If you"re Mickey Harte you won"t be too bothered by it. Why should you? The aroma from your latest All-Ireland success is still wafting through the air and you have time on your hands. Plenty of it! Why start asking Sean Cavanagh, Brian Dooher, Enda McGinley or any of those players associated with a third success in six years to press themselves back into the same routine they have slavishly devoted to in 2008 when 2009 is still a few weeks away yet. Even if you"re Conor Counihan there won"t be much rush on you after a first season that saw you claim a Munster title and force Kerry into a second All-Ireland semi-final that raised as much problems as it solved. But if you"re Richie Connor (Offaly), Tommy Carr (Cavan), Pat Gilroy (Dublin), John Joe Doherty (Donegal), Sean Dempsey (Laois), Eamonn O"Brien (Meath) or any of the dozen plus new managers set for the amphitheatre in 2009, then you"ll be feeling more than a little uneasy at the straight jacket you have found yourself bound by. You"re natural inclination will be to get up and running, to do something or even be seen to do something. But you can"t because of the restriction placed on all inter-county teams by the GAA when they passed into legislation a series of measures designed to reduce the effects of burn out on inter-county players. To be fair to those that brought in such legislation, their motives were sound. They are keen to reduce the toll on their most "in demand" players and by placing them in dry dock for two months of the year they are effectively affording the same rest and recuperation that professional footballers in the Premiership, the AFL and rugby players in this country and around the globe are afforded. Two months away from the rigours of the training field, away from the habit of being in the same place at the same time freshens the mind as well as preserves the body. Or so the theory goes. And at the moment, the theory is all we can fall back on. The practice of such a move may be a little different. As it is, counties are only permitted two trials each in the course of those two months to assess players who were not involved in inter-county panels earlier this year. Individual gym work is strongly encouraged, but the concept of any other form of collective training is on the banned list of activities which the GAA sought to outlaw last January at a special Congress. In time, the benefits of the move may become apparent, especially if careers last longer and the number of injuries associated with over-training decline. But there is no guarantee of that except the prognosis of sports scientists who have the same hold over the GAA as economists have had over the fiscal fortunes of this country over the last decade. A lot of what they say has merit, but not everything is gospel. In the meantime the only guarantee about declines is the budget for running inter-county GAA teams which spiralled past the €20m mark for the first time ever last year. Without the facility to organise collective training in the months of November and December, this monstrous bill will begin to show signs of redress when balance sheets are presented to almost every county at the end of 2009. Mileage, catering, on site medical expertise and general logistics add up to quite an invoice at the end of each night. We"re not of course suggesting that the premise of player welfare is not the real reason behind the moratorium. But try telling that to the managers (and players) who are stuck in the stalls since last July, having lost a first or second round qualifier, waiting for a shot at redemption. It seems a long time to wait and, on the balance of things, appears to favour stronger teams who can relax safe in the knowledge that no one will be stealing a march on them. New managers are more hamstrung by the freeze as are those who are desperately trying to pick up the pieces. A good idea in theory, but the practice of such a restrictive measure has yet to be evaluated. Should the Croke Park doors stay open? Croke Park Teoranta - the body that looks after the running and management of Croke Park the pitch and Croke Park the building, with all the ancillary activities from weddings to local boxing nights to conferences and of course the plum fixtures put on by the IRFU and FAI - will hand over close to €13.5m to the mother ship when the accounts for 2008 are balanced and signed off sometime in the new year. That"s roughly the same figure realised in 2007, the landmark year that the ground first put out the welcome mat for international visitors as rugby and soccer teams passed through the doors for the first time ever. The scale of such a profit will always provoke comment about the reluctance of so many who, initially, and still, oppose the relaxing of the rules to allow such developments to happen. When you see the development of Pairc na nGael in San Francisco, helped by a donation of €500,000 from central funds, or peruse the development plans for so many "centres of excellence" around the country, the benefit of so much extra cash is well illustrated. It sets an interesting challenge, however, for the GAA"s legislators when Lansdowne Road is completed at the end of 2009 or beyond. Do they decide then to revert to the old Rule 42 as it once was, banning soccer or rugby from all GAA stadia, or will permission be sought to make permanent the current arrangement that allows the games to be played in Croke Park only? Inevitably all rugby and soccer games will revert to Lansdowne Road because of the scale of the investment in it. But the GAA has only gained by leaving its door open and there is little or no reason to return to the way it once was.