Football

Split season with some nips and tucks the way forward: Enda McGinley

Former Tyrone team mates Enda McGinley (left) and Stephen O'Neill have joined forces with Antrim
Former Tyrone team mates Enda McGinley (left) and Stephen O'Neill have joined forces with Antrim Former Tyrone team mates Enda McGinley (left) and Stephen O'Neill have joined forces with Antrim

ENDA McGinley insists the GAA has nothing to fear from a split season and with a few nips and tucks to tiered competitions, club and county can both be winners.

The inaugural Tailteann Cup and Qualifier system have been shelved for the year due to the late start to the inter-county season.

The GAA estimated it needed three more weeks to provide a fully fledged Championship season – but reluctantly opted for a knock-out football Championship for a second year running.

“I believe a well-run, four-month county competition will earn the GAA as much as a longer one would,” McGinley said.

“I think you’d have a brilliant standard of games, it would be thoroughly enjoyable for the players, the running costs of county set-ups would be cut back and I don’t think the GAA would lose profile if it was well done.”

The Antrim footballers take on Louth (May 15, Drogheda), Sligo (May 23, Corrigan Park) and Leitrim (May 30, Corrigan Park) in a slimmed down regional NFL before preparing for their Ulster Championship match with Armagh at The Athletic Grounds on July 3/4.

Despite stepping into the inter-county managerial circuit with Antrim, McGinley remains a big supporter of the club scene and cited the hugely successful club championships of 2020 as a compelling reason to push ahead with the split season.

“When the club season is the only show in town they can garner and hold people’s attention and I think we’re only starting to get into the proper narratives throughout the country of club competitions,” he said.

“As well as more games and less training there are savings for clubs as well rather than running a senior team for nine or 10 months which is an expensive business nowadays.

“For the quality of the competitions and the life balance of players I think that’s the most important thing. I think we need to be free and brave in terms of the competition structures we go with.

“If the Association does that right, that is maybe more important than anything. I think the old Qualifiers were somewhere about the right area but I don’t think any of the proposals nail it at the minute.

“Some people really want to hold onto our provincial Championships, and then other people love our National Leagues but well-run, condensed, succinct competitions has to be the end goal."

Like many observers, McGinley was a bit miffed with the early marketing of the Tailteann Cup – a competition created for teams knocked out of their provincial Championships.

“My gut feeling is that every team should in some way start the season with the chance to get at Sam,” said the Antrim boss.

“But at the same time there should be a tiering system, a really good secondary competition but it has to be run like an intermediate club competition where it’s given the same amount of respect as the senior competition and those teams that win it feel the same level of achievement."

He added: “I’d be more worried about the proposals that came out at the start of the year in terms of competitions. I think some of those proposals have the Tailteann Cup as an also-ran competition which everybody promised that it wouldn’t be.

“And even in this year’s initial fixtures schedule the Tailteann Cup final was pencilled in before the All-Ireland hurling semi-final. It’s even worse than the way the Tommy Murphy Cup was treated. Despite all their words of putting great store in this competition, it’s hard to take that seriously at the minute.

“Until the GAA get their head around that particular issue, there’s no real point starting up a Tailteann Cup when they’re going to revise the competitions for next year anyway, so I’m not sure it’s a massive loss [to the current schedule], but of course more games are always welcome given at what we’re looking at.”