MARTIN CARNEY: Adjustments need to be made to the split season format

WHEN it happened, it was somewhat more abrupt than I had anticipated and, indeed, something I found quite surprising. Over successive weekends, the sight of Westport, Ballyhaunis and Islandeady all falling at the first hurdle in their respective provincial championships was unexpected, though to a degree I foresaw the Westport implosion.

The emotional toll of winning their first ever senior title proved considerable and anything afterwards was always likely to be a bridge too far. The team hadn’t run out of ambition but the energy and purpose needed for a Connacht campaign had evaporated. Mentally, bodies were reluctant to start once again from the foothills after such a short break.

Ballyhaunis, as intermediate representatives, will rue the second-half display in their encounter with Dunmore and an inability to meet the demands when Dunmore turned the screw. While not quite comfortable at the break, they nonetheless had given sufficient notice in the opening period that the tools, tactics and desire to complete the job in the second half were there, and that early goal after the break only seeming to confirm this impression.

Yet when the squeeze came they were found wanting. Scouring for answers to explain their subsequent lacklustre performance is difficult and purely speculative at best. No doubt, reported pre-match injuries sustained by their star duo, Keith Higgins and Jack Coyne, wouldn’t have helped matters and perhaps explains in part their quieter than usual performance. Irrespective, this was one I feel that could have gone their way had they managed to kick on from that goal.

Of the three representatives, Islandeady were the one who would have earned my flutter with the bookies. Watching them win their county title, I was impressed with their physicality, mobility and teamwork. Though not at their game against Clifden, I gather from some of those who were that a more than usual defensive approach may have proved their undoing. Sifting through manager Shane Hopkin’s post-match reaction, it was impossible to avoid detecting his deep sense of disappointment. Bemoaning individual errors is one thing but when the collective failure is seen as the primary reason, it adds another layer of grief.

One way or the other, the reality is that adult club football has run its course for the season. It was disappointing in each case to suffer defeat to Galway opponents. Hopefully there isn’t anything ominous and foreboding in all of this!

REFLECT

So perhaps, then, it’s as good a time as any to take a moment and reflect on the success or otherwise of the GAA’s inaugural ‘split season’ experiment that is just complete.

Looking for definitive answers to its merit and future may be premature. The trial period needs a longer settling-in period but it’s timely to ask whether initial impressions indicated it was for the betterment of the game overall.

Did the new format benefit club and county as it was designed to do or is it something that needs more time before a final decision is made to retain or scrap it?

The January to July inter-county period was too compressed and shoehorned into a tight timeframe in order to get the season completed by the end of July. Little space between league games gave players inadequate recovery time and though I don’t have statistics to support my instinct, may have led to a greater injury frequency.

Secondly, the principle of deciding match results on the day and doing away with replays in championship football wasn’t totally satisfactory and had its drawbacks. I’m influenced in this view by the outcome of the Galway v Armagh thriller in the All-Ireland quarterfinal. Here was a game that had everything: 44 scores, of which five were goals; level at the end of normal time and again at the end of extra time; and on top of these statistics, three red cards and a mini-riot – all of which kept the 71,000 fans transfixed before the result was determined by penalties.

This, to be fair for all concerned, was an occasion that cried out for a replay and the widest constituency – players, fans, commercial interests and media organisations – were short-changed by not having one.

Stripping the sporting landscape of the inter-county product for the second part of the year isn’t satisfactory. We are captives of tradition and habit, so coming to terms with a fallow period which during the past was associated with the All-Ireland semi-finals and finals is something many are struggling to come to grips with. Being stripped of the attendant publicity that these fixtures guarantee with live television coverage, just when the Premier League resumes and the interpro rugby starts rocking and rolling, isn’t healthy.

Club games which replace the inter-county game attract only a small fraction of the viewing audience on television. Another less obvious casualty is the loss of revenue suffered by the manufacturers of replica jerseys. O’Neills, traditionally the biggest group in the market place in this line, reported a substantial fall off in sales this year.

TIMING

And what about the players themselves? For the inter-county stalwart, his summer was in many ways determined by the timing of his exit from the provincial championship and subsequent qualifiers.

Take Monaghan for example. Beaten in Ulster by Derry on May 16 in Ulster, they exited for good when losing to Mayo in the qualifiers on June 4. Like many from other counties in the same boat, some of their players were able to sample football with clubs in America for the first time in their careers. In most cases these were enjoyable experiences.

By way of contrast, the likes of Lee Keegan (I’m being selective, okay) had no sooner finished the season with Mayo before he began to embark on the historic journey with his club, Westport, which kept him involved until two weeks ago.

For a guy who started six of Mayo's seven National League games before anchoring his club through the remainder of the year, this proved a very long season. In the past, when there was an element of overlap between club and county, fewer demands were made on players like him.

Inter-county training resumed at the weekend and like all followers, I’m looking forward to the new season. Whether or not this new ‘split season’ format remains the norm is open to question; there are still, from what we have seen so far, adjustments needed.