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Irish Examiner
02-05-2025
- Sport
- Irish Examiner
Sad that Burns passed buck on August All-Ireland finals
At least this year it wasn't the Mancunian sons of a Meath father and Mayo mother who confirmed the All-Ireland finals weren't for shifting from July. GAA president Jarlath Burns declared on Tuesday that there would be no August deciders in 2026. That's three months earlier than the moment last year when people learned from MCD Promotions that Liam, not Eoghan Bán Gallagher, would be a star attraction in Croke Park in mid-August 2025. For somebody who 12 months ago floated the idea of a return to September All-Ireland finals, last played in 2017, some might say that Burns has made quite the retreat. Wasn't it only in February that GAA director general Tom Ryan said that 'stretching the season out a little would be no bad thing?' Of course it wouldn't. In August, as other sports stir from summer siestas, the GAA can recapture the national zeitgeist. But can they realise that? Burns: 'This year it's out, next year it's out as well. But it's going to be the next president who will make that decision, whether or not we go into August.' For a man who has unquestionably shown leadership in his first 12 months in office, it's unusual for Burns to be passing the buck like this. Are there concerts already in place for August 2026? In this and last year's appearances on YouTube show 'Ratified', he spelt out some of what it is wrong with the condensed season – the two-week gap between All-Ireland semi-finals and finals, the one-week between the showpieces, the proximity of the conclusion of the league to the start of the provincial championships. He is clearly aware of the problems but there are solutions. Read More Tommy Martin: Barbarians at the gates amid decline and fall of Dublin empire Burns: 'The moment there's ever any word that we might move one inch into August, I'll get a phone-call from Paul Bellew of Galway and Kevin O'Donovan from Cork. 'Don't move that one inch. We have a sweet spot'.' Undoubtedly, Cork and Galway are the stress tests but as much as Galway is a bona fide dual county, we're going to take Cork as the real example here as the westerners don't have a provincial deadline for the club hurling championship. Cork need 16 weeks to complete their championships. Do those 16 weeks have to be completed by the end of October? A week in the calendar year can be taken back by moving the All-Ireland senior hurling semi-finals from December to January. Last year, Leinster GAA gave two weeks back to the counties by contracting the province's championships – can Connacht, Munster and Ulster do something similar? It would mean more November county finals but also more clubs playing longer into the year. Let's not kid ourselves either that this is just about the club player. In their 2024 financial years, Cork and Galway earned €1.384 million and €982,482 in gate receipts respectively. To Croke Park, Galway chairman Bellew has provided a thought-provoking document to retain the inter-county schedule but take the condensed element out of it by removing games. It is a thought-provoking piece of work yet the issue of giving up a month of national profile remains unresolved. Burns: 'We were showing so little respect to the club player that there was literally a group set up called the Club Player Association and they had one word, fixtures. We solved that for them. Let's not now go and unsolve it.' The CPA did not have an issue with September All-Ireland finals. Not that they appear achievable anymore. The CPA's reddest line was always certainty for the club player. Burns: 'And I'm going to say the next thing without any apology – we also have concerts in this. And Croke Park is now the major funding organ of the GAA. Let's not forget that. This stadium is keeping our organisation financially viable.' Concerts have been known to take place not just in August but May (Bruce Springsteen, 2016), June (Taylor Swift, '18) and September (Garth Brooks, '22). Between the ladies football and camogie league finals and Sunday week's Leinster SFC final, Croke Park is available for four weeks. Between the Leinster SHC final on June 8 and All-Ireland SFC quarter-finals, it is open for another three. Undoubtedly, Coldplay's four gigs in August and September last year contributed a large portion of the €16 million Croke Park gave to the GAA last year. It is GAA stadium and commercial director Peter McKenna's job to sweat the asset but providing he is given notice he can do that in early summer too. As Chris Martin sang, 'Nobody said it was going to be easy'. It's such a shame for us to part with the idea that the inter-county championship can't be more than a microwaved option. Burns: 'I would understand why they (the Ulster Council) would be cross with supporting the GPA but I did it for player welfare.' Doing away with the pre-season competitions to reduce the load on inter-county players backfired spectacularly and not just financially as the Ulster Council discovered. The GPA themselves admitted counties (and their members) undermined the very zero contact month of November they devised. For player welfare, counties have to be forced into a later start. For game promotion, the GAA has to establish a later finish.
Irish Examiner
29-04-2025
- Sport
- Irish Examiner
Jarlath Burns: All-Ireland finals will not return to August in 2026
GAA president Jarlath Burns has stated the All-Ireland finals will not return to August in 2026. Despite last year floating the idea of the inter-county season returning to a finish in September, Burns ruled out the deciders being played in the eighth month of the year and suggested it will be a matter for his successor. 'It's not a non-runner for the future. This year it's out, next year it's out as well,' he told the GAA+ magazine programme Ratified on which he made the September comments 12 months ago. 'But it's going to be the next president who will make that decision, whether or not we go into August. 'It's probably not going to be my decision, but I would be open to it, notwithstanding the health warning that comes with the whole area of starting the club championship. We were showing so little respect to the club player that there was literally a group set up called the Club Player Association and they had one word, fixtures. 'We solved that for them. Let's not now go and unsolve it. So you fix one problem and you create another problem. But I think that there is generally an understanding that moving into the first and third weeks of August mightn't be the worst thing. 'But you have to remember this also – we have LGFA, they have their All-Ireland finals as well. And we have camogie, they have their All-Ireland finals here too. And we also have to allow for a replay in hurling and football and a replay in LGFA and Camogie. So that takes up a good bit of August. 'And I'm going to say the next thing without any apology – we also have concerts in this. And the Croke Park is now the major funding organ of the GAA. Let's not forget that. This stadium is keeping our organisation financially viable. Because without the €16 million or €18m that is given by Croke Park to the GAA, it costs us €20m every year to pay the 350 coaches we have going around full-time promoting our games.' Admitting he was severely criticised for supporting the GPA's proposal to suspend the pre-season competitions, Burns said the Ulster Council lost €250,000 as a result of the McKenna Cup. 'If there's anything that I got the most severe criticism over, it was supporting the GPA over the ending of the pre-season competitions. In my own province, I went to the Ulster Convention and they were queueing up to criticise me over that. 'That cost about about a quarter of a million dollars to the Ulster Council and I would understand why they'd be cross with me supporting the GPA, but I did it for player welfare. That's what the GAA president has to be always cognisant of." Burns said he was surprised by the negative reaction to the Football Review Committee making changes to their list of rules after the fifth round of the Allianz Football League. He said that entitlement was part of the enabling motion that was passed at Special Congress last November. He added that it will be 10 years before the moves being overseen by the hurling development committee to expand the game in weaker counties will come to fruition.
Irish Examiner
24-04-2025
- Sport
- Irish Examiner
Richie Hogan on Cork 'gimmicks' and Clare Christmas sessions: 'We thought, aren't these lads some idiots.'
In Kilkenny, it was all about the fundamentals. Anything outside of that was deemed a 'gimmick'. They saw gimmicks in Cork and Clare, according to seven-time All-Ireland winner Richie Hogan. The four-time All-Star retired in 2023, having made his championship debut in 2008. Speaking on GAA+'s Ratified show, Hogan explained how Kilkenny valued the basics above all else. 'We had virtually no video analysis up until a couple of years ago,' he said. 'Clare wore GPS trackers in 2016 against us in the league semi-final - they hammered us. Not that we would turn our noses up at all of that; we almost saw everything outside of the basics as almost permission to have an excuse.' That is why they did not opt for closed training sessions or dummy teams. Brian Cody had his own core beliefs. 'We had no coach. His line was always, 'If you are an intercounty hurler and you need to be coached, you are not good enough to be here.' That is the way he would address it. It has changed since. The first designated coach that came in during my time was in 2021.' This is how it was. The game has changed since. But Kilkenny had their own code. Hogan pointed to a number of examples of what he deemed 'gimmicks'. Donal Óg Cusack and his contact lens. Clare training on Christmas. The Dublin footballers of the mid-2000s. 'We thought they were the England footballers, the showmanship, the craic that goes on around it, we would have been completely against that. 'From a Cork perspective, the more they came out with their little gadgets, the contact lens in their eyes, one day they came out where everyone was wearing the same colour helmets so the opposition would be confused, the more we saw that, the more we loved. 'Changing the ball, we were like, 'these lads think they can focus on the one percent, but they are forgetting the 90%.' I remember a huge motivating factor for us, in 2013, Clare won the All-Ireland. 'They did brilliant to win it but then they brought out this documentary at the end of that year with this video of Tony Kelly running through some woods on Christmas Day at two in the morning. Davy Fitz was behind him with the lights. This was their thing. 'We are training on Christmas Day. No one else is. We were seeing that, and thought, 'Aren't these lads some idiots.' 'They think, just because you train on Christmas day, you are going to win an All-Ireland. That would motivate us even more. We wouldn't go near… We know when down time is. We know when we started training, we'd do it properly from start to finish. We were never into the gimmicks. We saw that as a gimmick. There's no need to train on Christmas day. You get nothing out of it.' The full episode of Ratified is available here
