Cavan motion on minor age grade to be debated at Congress

GAA news

A leading club official has warned that changing the minor grade from U18 to U17 has been “a disaster” and must be undone immediately.

A motion brought forward by the Killygarry club to change inter-county minor football and hurling back to U18 from U17 will be debated at the GAA’s annual Congress this weekend at the Connacht Air Dome in Co Mayo. The motion was unanimously carried at Cavan’s county convention last December.

Killygarry’s assistant secretary, Gerard Tormey, spoke on the original motion at the convention and believes it is imperative that the association make the change before any more young players are deprived of opportunities to develop or are lost to the game entirely.

“These lads should get an extra year to develop and mature before they play at senior level,” he said.

“With the split season now in place, it also allows these lads the opportunity to finish their U18 inter-county competitions in June and July and then they will be available to play with their clubs in league and championship competitions.

“At the moment, once players are finished with U17 football, the gap to U20 is too great. County players are not developing as they should and the drop-off rate at club level is high. This is happening across the board,” he said.

The decision to change the grade originated with a proposal by Monaghan to Congress in 2014 after which, in 2016, the GAA published a discussion paper entitled ‘Player Overtraining and Burnout, and the GAA Fixtures Calendar’.

Monaghan later voted to change minor club football in the county back to U18, with well-known referee Pat McEnaney (Corduff) proposing the change, which was passed by 45 votes to two at their annual convention.

However, it has been reported today that Monaghan are to trial an U19 county championship for next year.

Among the potential advantages of switching from the traditional U18 grade to U17 listed in that paper were the avoidance of clashes with Leaving Certificate/A Levels and the fact that U17 competitions would not affect the playing of adult club fixtures.

However, the GAA is now considering introducing an U19 grade which, insisted Tormey, would take in more students and cause a major clash with adult fixtures, two of the stated reasons for changing from U18 in the first place.

“We have to ask the question, in what way has the minor competition changing to U17 actually improved the competition? It has completely changed, the grade has been devalued and is no longer linked to the big senior occasions.

“Players are drifting out of the game and are not developing as they should. From the 2018 Cavan U17 panel, only one player is now on the Cavan senior panel.

“From the 2017 U17 panel, there are only two. We are cutting players adrift in the year that they turn 18.

“We in Killygarry feel very strongly about this and we hope that the motion will be supported at Congress this weekend.”

Many leading figures in Gaelic games nationally have spoken out on the issue. McEnaney told the Irish News last November: “To me, by moving to U17, that gap has become bigger. That’s my biggest concern about U17 football. We need to go back.

“U18 is the first real competitive challenge we should be putting people under, and give it a better position.

“We’ve always played our U18 finals before our senior final and it always got a better standing, I think we’ve watered the whole thing down. We’re losing bigger numbers and it’s lost its presence within the county, is my view on it.”

Pundit Joe Brolly, meanwhile, wrote: “Since the minor grade changed from U18 to U17, clubs all over Ireland are haemorrhaging players.”