A FEW DAYS out from Antrim getting their Ulster championship campaign up and running by travelling to Armagh’s Box-It Athletic Grounds, and Saffrons manager Andy McEntee is not convinced about the early start.
This is the earliest All-Ireland championship since the early years of the GAA when the series would regularly cross into other years, but in living memory, nobody can recall an early April start.
“Ah, I don’t agree with it. I voiced this before. The split season is all fine. But even if you just think of it as a player, say you pull a hamstring, you’re gone for six to eight weeks,” the former Meath manager points out.
“That could be your championship gone. This whole idea of not being allowed to train collectively before a certain a date and then you’re throwing games at amateur players….
“I mean, you’re asking them to play McKenna Cup, three games in the space of ten days, and then national league; seven games in the space of nine weeks. “We turn around then and we have 15 out of 37 guys injured. And it’s not just us. Heavy pitches and the wrong time of the year.”
On Sunday during the presentation for the division 1 league title to Mayo, GAA President Larry McCarthy warned the ‘critics collective’ to reserve judgement on the split season, and to give it time to bed in, but those injury statistics are alarming.
From his own personal experience of working with a county team and having been in this sphere since August 2016, McEntee feels the balance is wrong.
“I’m not so sure…everybody talks about the split season being good for clubs – that’s certainly not the feedback I’m getting,” he states.
“An awful lot of clubs are finding themselves with games in the middle of summer and players are heading off to America. Championship is not going to start until September. So the league programmes in a lot of counties are not what they were.
“I even feel financially, we’ve shot ourselves in the foot. We have prime viewing in June, July and August. No soccer, give or take. No rugby. “That was GAA time. We’ve given it away. It doesn’t make sense to me. You’ve a captive audience at that time of year and we’ve given it away.”
After a league campaign when McEntee watched the good, bad and frankly baffling, he believes Antrim are still in a good place. They were in leading positions against Fermanagh – eight points up with 20 minutes to go – and Down in the closing stages.
But they followed that up with a 31-point loss to Westmeath, before finishing the league by beating the eventual league winners Cavan before a losing to relegated Longford in their only win of the league. Added to that, they are coming up against an Armagh side feeling smartened by relegation from Division One.
“You’re after poking the bear a bit. Look, playing Armagh, you see where they got to last year and they were within a penalty shoot-out of progressing even further,” he said.
“That’s the magnitude of the challenge we face. Division 1 or division 2, it’s still a great challenge.”
With the change of the format of the All-Ireland and Tailteann Cup series after the provincial championships are settled, this is McEntee’s first time in Ulster, but he is insistent that the provinces have less worth now than ever.
“I’ve made no secret of the fact that I think the provincial system just doesn’t make sense. But I can understand why Ulster doesn’t want to change, because it’s the one province that isn’t broken,” he explained.
“You look at some of the Ulster championship games over the years, there’s great rivalry there. And there’s a spread of counties that can actually win it.
“Derry and Monaghan, Cavan, Donegal, Tyrone, Armagh. Fermanagh had a really good run too. You’d have to look at Ulster and say that’s the one province that isn’t broken.
“Unfortunately the rest of them are. Even the numbers things…if you took someone from outer space and tried to explain how this thing works, with 32 counties, they’d look and you and go, ‘really?’
“You see now what has happened with the draw in Connacht. It doesn’t make sense. You’re going to get a Division 4 team playing in the championship at the expense of a Division 2 team. That doesn’t make sense.”
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Dropping of points is a major concern already. The performance was good yesterday I thought. Hitting the post twice and the crossbar and add in Pickford had the game of his life, these kinda days happen every once and a while but we have to start putting teams away. City dropping points aswell against struggling villa shows they’re not invincible but Liverpool have to start putting teams away before city are out of sight. Can’t be depending on a comeback like last season when we were 14 points behind them at 1 stage only to finish a point behind them on the final day.
@James horgan: not good enough last season and def not good enough this yr. They need to concentrate on qualifying for europe next yr and prioritise the FA or CARABOO as to keep the fans happy.
@Sean Bourke: “concentrate on qualifying for Europe”. Are you for real. They’ll finish in top 3 and more than likely top 2 with city winning the league. Arsenal will die off, Chelsea and spurs aren’t exactly setting the world on fire and united are united. No fears of any of the rest, just trying to keep pace with city. Which they aren’t at the moment but a long way to go.
@James horgan: “and united are united” ….. What’s that supposed to mean? They stick together?
@Stephen Foster: it means they won’t be anywhere near challenging for a title so Liverpool or City or spurs or whoever has eyes on winning it won’t even be taking uniteds results into consideration
@James horgan: recent form, results, and a look at the Premiership table would suggest otherwise.
@Stephen Foster: Man united are currently 8th. What are you on about
@James horgan: James don’t be taking that bait…
@Darren Fitzpatrick: he did tho lol
@Sean Bourke: he did :(
@James horgan: United are United! That’s a ridiculous statement. The most successful team in premiership history. If United are United they’ll finish above Liverpool as they have done more often than not over the last 30 years
@James horgan: omg get the thermometer out
@James horgan: and now they are 4th?
Bigger concern is that some players, Trent most of all, are too casual and look like they don’t care. Liverpool decided to rely on injury prone players so can’t use that excuse. The group they have should be doing better.
This result wouldn’t have been a disaster if the previous games were won . Mane is a big loss and a mistake letting him go , it makes it all so worse when ox was on more money than him .Too many players are off the pace at once , and if this run gets worse the fans will be on the Glazers miserly uncles , John Henry and co .
@Tricksy: he didn’t want to be there. His time ran it’s course. This mane missing is growing legs for now reason. Apart from the last 6 months of last year there previous 18 where poor from
Mane. Albeit he always gave you 100 percent, had had been lacking world class quality for a bit. I’m not haven him gone as the one sole reason we haven clicked yet
@Tricksy: Mane wanted to go they didn’t let him go if a player wants to leave good luck to him it can’t be as simple as Mane leaving ,form from at least 5/6 players has been poor and at that level if your not on it you get found out