The most important grade is being treated like dirt

In writing the piece in tribute to the late Mick O’Brien of Walterstown and Meath in this space a short time ago, mention was made of the revolutionary work carried out by the legendary schoolteacher with regard to organising underage football within his beloved Blacks. Now read on…

In all the wholly deserved pieces produced in homage to the great man – my own included – one of his greatest achievements was actually largely overlooked. In 1978, he oversaw Walterstown teams which won the Meath SFC, Junior A FC (with presumably their second team) and U-21 FC.

In so many ways, the latter is the most important grade of competition under any of the GAA codes. At either club or inter county level. The conduit between underage and adult fare. So in one sense, the third leg of that ’78 treble was the foundation stone upon which the Keegan Cup successes of 1980, ’82, ’83 and ’84 were moulded in the vicinity of Garlow Cross.

Now, like a lot of other matters within the GAA over the last decade or so – like the vile split season, taking the All Ireland Minor finals out of Croke Park and the All Ireland Club Finals away from St Patrick’s Day, the U-20 Championships as they now ridiculously are – have been subjected to counterproductive and unnecessary meddling.

To a point where, the most important grade of competition under the auspices of the GAA is being treated like utter dirt.

Why in the name of all that is sane would the so-called Brains Trust of the Association think it was a good idea to play the All Ireland semi finals of a Championship of the utmost importance midweek.

Yet that is exactly the scenario facing the four counties in the latter stages of the All Ireland U-20 FC (and presumably the same applied in hurling). Which led to the ludicrous situation whereby Tomas Kennedy of Kerry was withdrawn in the final quarter of the Munster senior final.

Yes it’s Kerry and yes they are better endowed with resources than most, but, it was stil a ridiculous situation for Jack O’Connor et al and those involved with the other counties who have teams in both senior and U-20 competitions.

Now, no doubt the reformists will be saying ‘oh well sure we had the situation so that players couldn’t play both and ye conservatives had a fit’. Rightly so, because them playing both wasn’t the issue. It was and is a scheduling issue.

Secondly, it would place a grotesquely unfair impediment on what we might term less prominent counties. Say, for example, if Leitrim’s Barry McNulty or Tom Prior or Sean O’Connor of Tipperary or Darragh McGurn from Fermanagh were within age bracket but precluded from playing.

And for what is all the newness? Just so a cohort can have their little power trip on the fad it’s good for everybody when in fact it only strengthens the elite at both club and county level while the majority are cut adrift.