JOHNNY McINTOSH: Blurred lines

FIRST off, congratulations to Tipperary. They were thoroughly deserving All-Ireland champions, and it’s fair to say they completely dismantled a highly-rated Cork side in the hurling showpiece a fortnight ago.

It was a crazy collapse from the Rebels, and I think everyone has seen the Whatsapps claiming that there was a dressing room bust-up at half-time. I’d be very skeptical about that, and I think the focus should be on a brilliant second-half performance from Tipperary.

It was a bit of a perfect storm in that respect, and one of the things that grabbed my attention in the aftermath was Tipperary players talking about the effort they’ve put in since they were called together by Liam Cahill last August. Of course, no formal intercounty activity is permitted until December, but it’s an open secret that teams are flouting that, and it begs the question about what exactly is the point of the split-season?

To me, we no longer seem to have a genuinely amateur association. We’ve become so professional and that brings its plus points in terms of standards, but it does sometimes seem that the GAA has lost sight of its amateur ethos.

Part of the trouble with that is that for so many counties, winning an All-Ireland is just a complete pipedream. It’s totally out of reach. The romance has gone out of it for a lot of counties, and I say that while acknowledging that the intercounty football season was as good as it’s ever been because of the impact of the new rules.

That said, I look at kids in their teenage years and they’re already training multiple times a week, particularly at the bigger clubs. When I was a youngster, we used to meet up at 7pm on a Wednesday evening and train for an hour before a game at the weekend and that was the height of your formal involvement. It was much easier-going in that respect.

It’s a bit of a vicious cycle where teams will want to replicate the big winners each other and I think that will have the effect where teams will no longer dominate for years on end. I’m sure the Tipperary players absolutely busted themselves this year in the belief it was necessary to win an All-Ireland, and you can’t reasonably ask players to go to that well year-in-year-out, unless you’re from an incredibly well-resourced county who can give players jobs. You hear about players at the top counties getting jobs and endorsements and one thing or another, but it’s limited to those bigger counties and that’s creating an ever-largening gap between the elite teams and the rest of us.

I don’t know exactly how the GAA goes about addressing the issue, and I think the split-season has only compounded the problem. County teams are going flat out for large stretches of the year and then those players are going straight into the club season. When are those players actually afforded time off? And unfortunately something I’ve detected is that a significant cohort of county players aren’t giving their all to their clubs as they’re mentally spent by the time the county season comes to a close.

Perhaps a possible solution is a properly condensed season, and not the broad approximation of one that we have right now. For example, we could have two blocks of four. The intercounty season could run between the months February and May before a four-month club season. and then everything is completely shut.

There’s four months where GAA activity is a minimum, but I know that wouldn’t appeal to everyone, as people want to see games and it would raise all sorts of other questions, like would we allow our players to be involved with other sports during that four-month down-time? It wouldn’t suit the media either, and again, there’s the problem of the rules being breached anyway.

I do think it’s something worth considering though, and we could even take a lead from the NFL. They have a season of around seven months and I think that’s a good way of doing things, rather than having the total saturation we’re having right now.

Perhaps it’s too radical a solution and realistically it seems like the horse has bolted. The games and association we have now bears little resemblance to my own playing days, and while it’s tempting to look at things through rose-tinted glasses, I genuinely worry about where it’s all heading. Answers on a postcard, please!