Huge interest in isolated player ruling

THERE will be a special Clare GAA convention next Thursday at the West County hotel at 7pm to discuss the updated county bylaws.

There has been much debate in recent months with regard to proposed changes to the bylaw dealing with isolated players. A number of meetings have taken place with club representatives on this subject leading to some heated debate.

Heretofore, players from an exclusively hurling or football club have sought and got permission to play hurling or football, generally with a neighbouring club.

Under the new proposal, players applying for permission to be allowed play as an isolated player will have to play with the nearest club.

Structures meeting

WHILE the topic of isolated players is leading to a lot of debate, there is little doubt the competition structures for the upcoming season are concerning the majority of clubs.

At the recent county convention, all motions dealing with competition structures were deferred to next week’s meeting.

Last year’s structures’ meeting decided to limit the number of players that a club could regrade to four and the report presented to that meeting further recommended that the number would drop to three for 2013. Clooney-Quin and Kilmurry-Ibrickane presented motions to the recent convention asking that the number revert to five.

Éire Óg are looking for a change in the senior hurling championship format. They propose four groups of five teams with the top two in each progressing to the quarter-finals. The third team in each group would play in the senior B semi-finals. The fourth-placed team in each group would contest a relegation play-off with the eventual loser dropping down to the intermediate grade, while the fifth placed team in each group would automatically be relegated to intermediate.  This is sure to lead to plenty of debate.

Cooraclare want a change in the league structure that would see the number of divisions reduced from seven to six with the number of teams in Divisions 1 to 4 increased from eight to 10. Division 5 would comprise eight teams with Division 6 comprising just six teams.