League format over-burdens college-going players and needs to change, claims Derek McGrath
The cut-throat nature of the six-team divisional format combined with the Fitzgibbon Cup over-burdens college-going hurlers, according to McGrath.
He would dearly love to excuse players like Austin Gleeson and Tadhg de Burca from the February part of the competition so as to allow them focus on playing in the Fitzgibbon Cup.
However, with just five round games and the bottom two counties facing a relegation final he can’t afford to because of what’s at stake.
McGrath informed the Waterford board before Christmas of his wishes to see the league format altered.
“Anyone reading this might think I’m trying to be cute and avoid relegation but the nature of our panel would see about 17 players involved in Fitzgibbon. Any debate in Croke Park that centres on burnout or what players are doing, to me it has to centre on a regrouping of the league so that I could turn around to any of our Fitzgibbon Cup players and say: ‘We don’t want you involved in the first three games in February — concentrate on the college’.
“If there was a change to the shape of the league, a 10-team division or two equal groups, you could do that. They could play their college hurling, get their academic work done and enjoy it. The Fitzgibbon is massive for them.”
McGrath supports the establishment of the Club Players Association (CPA) but highlights the need for balance in their aims. He stresses the point that club players in his experience enjoy a break during the summer.
“I welcome the Club Players Association but I don’t think playing more championship games during the summer will stand up.
“After the Leaving Cert, when there is a guy who’s playing minor hurling for the county and that finishes, he’s hoping to get away for a week with his buddies. The same if he’s after doing his first year’s exams in college. They’re hungry to get away.
“I agree with (CPA hurling fixtures co-ordinator) Liam Griffin on the fixtures remit but that remit should also include breaks. That might sound contradictory but recovery and downtime during the summer also has to be built into any fixtures overhaul.
"A lot of those involved in the Club Players Association executive are ex-inter-county players. So there is a certain responsibility there not to see things eyes wide shut but that what was once important for them (inter-county scene) is now important to other people. The balance in presenting that is important.
“It’s a juggernaut now, the club issue, and it’s become part of the talk at the table at a club — ‘ah, sure we don’t know where we’re playing.’ I’m not sure if it’s telling the entire truth of the real feelings of club players.”
McGrath maintains he is talking not as a county manager — in his three years thus far at the helm of Waterford he has made just one request to postpone club fixtures —but as a club man.
“I was only around the Waterford panel for two or three years but I played 20 years with De La Salle and I went straight from that to managing De La Salle and I went straight from that to managing Waterford. In the 22 years playing and managing De La Salle, one thing that was always welcome in my club was that two or three-week break in July and August.
“The fixtures will only be condensed if the games are rolled out in July and August but then people will be looking for the two or three-week break, the factory shutdown or whatever. As a manager, I used to structure it with two pre-seasons. We played our first two championship matches, the county players went back to Waterford and then when they returned to us after Waterford exited the championship we would have another pre-season.
“I would always be able to say to a player that July was the time for holidays. They knew that they could have some downtime mid-season.”
