Limerick’s underage record in hurling is horrendous in recent years. Battering after battering at inter county minor level, club championships that are throwing up walkover after walkover, and walloping after walloping.

A launch of a blueprint for the future of Limerick GAA entitled ‘Lifting the Treaty – Building a New Future’ took place in the South Court hotel last Tuesday evening. A twelve-page document was published and in many respects has raised more questions than answers. Bamboozled by detail, this writer was asked by a number of people who mightn’t have attended the meeting to compile an article that pretty much summarises the key issues.

Essentially the background is as follows. A delegation including people such as Shane Fitzgibbon, Eamon Cregan, Noel Hartigan was appointed by the county board to investigate the current state of Limerick hurling and return with their findings. Likewise, a committee including people such as Ollie Coffey, John Colbert, Michael Sheehan and Brian Kelly were appointed to look after the football side of things. The twelve-page document was not so much a detailed result of their findings, but more so a plan for what they believe is required in the future. Putting it mildly it outlined a sequence of radical wholesale changes that the Limerick clubs were expected to vote ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ on by Tuesday twelveth September, having only learned of them last Tuesday 26th August.

Almost every person in the county has his or her own views on the matter, and this writer is no different. That said, this writer is close enough to the underage scene, to know what is happening having probably refereed in the region of 300 underage games since 2002. The best direction for this article to take is a balanced viewpoint, by (a) teasing out the issues with the existing structure that need addressing, (b) discussing the proposed changes and (c) discussing the perceived difficulties with the proposed changes.

(a) Issues with the existing structures
This is an area that is key to the proposals and I feel that it was not correctly addressed at the meeting last week. The twelve-page document outlines what the committee need to do, but it hasn’t outlined why. It’s not enough to be simply told that ‘X’ is better than ‘Y’, the clubs need to be shown how and why. One of the main issues the committees would appear to have with the current structures is that some competitions at underage level are run from within the divisions, and varying population numbers can dictate that teams are fielding at 13 a side, and twelve a side. A team can be very strong at 13 a side, but may not have the extra couple of players to field at 15 a side.

However, the under 16 championships have been run on an all county league system for many years, with divisional competitions being run off within the divisions as completely standalone and primarily knockout competitions. In theory this is the best resolution as it allows the clubs a chance to compete for divisional honours, yet giving a number of games to the same teams by means of the league championship outside the division. The strongest teams in theory are graded into the top division and the remaining teams graded downwards into their respective divisions thereafter. However, for this system to work County Bord Na nOg must grade the teams correctly in the league system to prevent walkovers and hammerings. There were certainly some lopsided groups in 2008, but one must question how the teams were assigned to their respective groups. Despite the flaws in this system, there was merit to introducing it at under fourteen level, and possibly even under twelve level at least in the premier grade, if not at the lower grades. Perhaps it’s a solution that might be considered now.

Another issue for the committee would appear to be the lack of skill levels in the players. From the tone of the meeting, the clubs would appear to be at fault for this, but it’s not the clubs who have done the work over the years, it’s the primary school teachers. The importance of Leaving Cert points form the end result of any child’s school education, and the knock on effect of this is that right down through the food chain to primary level, accountability is increasing in emphasis. Therefore the tendency in many schools is to do extra work in mathematics, where as a number of years ago, there was more of a tendency to head toward the playing field. And even allowing for that, the level of interest in coaching GAA for free among teachers was far higher. And also factor in that away from the core subjects, many more parents want their children to be more proficient in Music, Drama and Singing than budding hurlers and footballers.

(b) The proposed changes

Please note that the twelve-page document is summarised below in a few bullet points. For a reader to get the full picture, they need to read the full document.

* The 4 divisional underage boards would cease to exist, as would any existing competitions e.g. The South championship or the West Championship.

* Future competitions are either on an All County basis, or via clusters of clubs determined by the County Board in any given year or age group.

* Non-competitive games in the form of ‘Go Games’ would take the place of competitive games for all ages up to and including under twelve.

* Clusters of teams will form competitions at underage levels, with a particular club possible participating in totally different clusters from age group to age group.

* Coaching of coaches would appear to be a primary goal under the new system

* The role of County Bord Na nOg will be diminished in that many of its current functions will be taken over by the Directors of Hurling and Football

* Schools of excellence are to be set-up for all ages from under 13 up to under 17 with the intention to provide players of a decent standing to the county minors



(c) Difficulties with the proposed changes
The majority of these difficulties are not based on personal opinion but on the opinions of many loyal and dedicated club personnel with whom I have been speaking in the past days.

(i) There is a general consensus that the criteria to become a coach aren’t stringent enough. This was also voiced by the opinion of a county Bord Na nOg officer at last Tuesday’s meeting where he said the following “I can walk into the Woodlands Hotel on a Saturday at 10am, and leave it at 1pm and I am a level one coach”. The officer is correct in some respects, but to be fair in GAA terms there is a programme of different levels that a coach must undertake to be recognised. Without prior understanding of the game, a course is merely a paperwork exercise.

(ii) The quality of the VHI cúl camps are seen as a concern, and many clubs are raising the point that if the County Board organised ventures with so-called qualified personnel aren’t of the required standard, what hope have the ordinary individuals in clubs got of meeting the standards?. It has been made clear that certain coaching standards are expected of club personnel.

(iii) There is a concern among the clubs that the disbanding of the divisional system is something that hasn’t been thought through. There is a lot of deep history in the divisions, and it has always been seen as an honour to win a medal or raise a cup within the division.

(iv) There is a concern that the intention is to become an IRFU situation whereby the elite players are tied up for a huge number of the year, and that the club competitions are pretty much secondary and meaningless as they only take place when the elite players are available, leaving the ordinary club player, twiddling his thumbs for much of the year

(v) The removal of the competitive underage element in GAA will potentially lead to players turning to other codes where they can get competitive games. The other codes must be licking their lips at t