With the all-consuming and sprawling inter-county season, it is growing increasingly difficult for club footballer to be happy with their lot. I’ve repeatedly made the point about how 98% of the GAA’s total playing population are club players only, and to this point, we still have a situation where our largest number of members remain without a discernible voice to fight their case in the way the GPA has done so successfully for the inter-county game.

Obviously the financial clout of county football with all the bells and whistles is the key factor in determining their first place positioning in the pecking order. And club football could never dream of bringing in the same kind of coin to that of the county game, but I still don’t see how it can be deemed appropriate for clubs in counties like Dublin and Mayo this year to have to turn their most meaningful competition for club players into almost a blitz to get it done in time to have a representative for the provincial competition in time. Ticking a box for the 98%.

Sure, the games will be played and someone will be crowned champions, but when club championships are run off in the space of two or three weeks, the joy is taken out of it. Players and clubs don’t have the time to celebrate their achievements. As soon as the final whistle blows in the quarter-final, they’re too busy preparing for the semi-final coming next week to even think about enjoying the journey and celebrating the win together… isn’t that what being a club is supposed to be about?

Back at congress in March of this year, nearly 40% of delegates voted against passing motion 7, which was a proposal to bring the All-Ireland finals forward just two measly weeks which would at the very least have given the appearance of some willingness to make a start down the road of making positive change for the club game. In truth, that result showed that there is no desire to change there.

I fully appreciate that the All-Ireland final went to a replay this year and that led to further congestion of club fixtures… but it shouldn’t really matter, the inter-county season could be finished well before late September, or early October as was the case this year.

Padraic Duffy is doing what he can, but until the club players of GAA can somehow form a representative body to fight their own battles they will continue to be treated as an insignificant after-thought to the county game.

Only when they have a group as part of the administrative system that are specifically seeking improvements for club players will we start to see a consequential shift in terms of satisfying the needs of everybody playing the game instead of the just the few at the very top.

The other huge issue that is affecting everybody involved in the game at club and county level and needs urgent modification is the interpretation of what constitutes a black card. Now, in general, I do belief it has had some positive impact on the game. We have just enjoyed our highest ever championship campaign in terms of average scores per game and it has succeeded in almost totally eradicating the incessant blocking and third man tackling of the support runners.

And I’m not advocating getting rid of the concept of punishing cynical play, but right now, I would argue nobody has a notion what a referee is going to do every time a player hits the deck, and we have put them in a really difficult position.

My suggestion remains the same… make the black card strictly for those stonewall blatant pull downs of a player with an imminent goal scoring chance in front of him - that Sean Cavanagh type foul on Conor McManus remains both the genesis and definition of the black card foul for me.

All the rest of these cynical fouls, and I’m not talking about a hand trip when a player is on the floor and he simply can’t stop himself from instinctively reaching out and grabbing a dangling foot… I’m talking about the last 5-10 mins of regulation, as the clock ticks into injury time and we see the team that is leading, and they start ruthlessly pulling down the opposition coming out with the ball to slow the play and disrupt their attacking momentum.

In that instance I’d love to see a rule adjustment to see those type of fouls punished with the Aussie Rules type penalty where the ball is brought up 50m from the spot of the original foul. It would be a huge disincentive for teams to be faced with the proposition of committing a foul in opposition’s half and having the ball advanced into a score-able position as opposed to the current situation which perfectly plays into the hands of the team defending the lead by slowing the play, and being allowed to replace the offending player in the next stoppage.

It would also serve to take pressure off referee’s from having to make a subjective call about the intent of a player, and you are reducing the severity of the penalty for players who commit one of these fouls. Instead of training all year and you commit a foul a referee assesses is a black and you have to go sit out the rest of that game, my suggestion would see a situation where a team is more often than not getting punished on the scoreboard. And I believe that is a modification to the black card could really put manners on teams.

A 50m advancement of the ball from the spot of the foul would see an end to teams systematically fouling to protect a one or two point lead in the dying seconds. Teams would be forced to play out the game genuinely to the final whistle instead of this professional ‘closing out’ approach we see in most games with a close score-line.

Club football and changes to the black card… those two will get us through dark winter nights.