New sideline guidelines meet with opposition

THE importance of having a club secretary with team management on match days was highlighted at the meeting.

The subject was raised when chairman Michael McDonagh asked to have guidelines for the upcoming championships ratified.

McDonagh proposed that the party allowed into the enclosure for championship games should include “one manager, two selectors, one medical person, plus two water/hurley carriers”. He proposed that the manager should be allowed to move freely in accordance with the referee’s and linesmen’s requirements, while the two selectors remain seated in the dugout or close proximity. Water/hurley carriers should be between 16 and 18 years of age and must enter the grounds 15 minutes before the game commences, wearing distinctive bibs. Team players and substitutes are to enter the field separate to management, medical personnel and water/hurley carriers.

Kilrush chairman Anthony O’Connor asked if the list includes the secretary, to which Pat Fitzgerald replied “No”.
O’Connor asked, “Who submits the list of substitutes?”

Fitzgerald replied, “Who does it for the county? At county level we are only allowed five into the enclosure since January. I haven’t been in a pitch as secretary of Clare GAA since the beginning of this season. At Cusack Park, I did it from the stand and the same in Limerick.”

O’Connor said, “It’s not practical for a club not to have the secretary on the line. Management are not going to write the lists and the substitutes’ slips.”

Fitzgerald said, “I don’t really mind. We have had serious incidents in the county this year.”

O’Connor stated, “The secretary of a club is a vital cog”, to which Fitzgerald replied, “I am a vital cog in the county scene. It’s easy to take out one of the selectors and put in the secretary. You have one less on the county scene.”

O’Connor said, “It’s crazy to say that. We want things done as professionally as possible and you are going to take out a selector to put in a secretary, who might have no idea of the team. There are blood subs to be considered, there are injuries to be considered and the linesman to be contacted as to when the subs are going on.”

McDonagh asked that the regulations be adopted for the first round of the hurling but said, “We will come back at the June meeting and review it”.

O’Connor said, “We spoke about a number of things at the last meeting to do with isolated players and I am not going home very happy tonight, I can tell you, the way things have gone, not one bit. The secretary gave us to understand that the isolated player rule would be done away with and we would go by the new bylaw and we come back here tonight and we get a wink and a nod.”

Fitzgerald said, “I have a recording of what I said and I made it very clear that the bylaws could not be implemented for 2013 and that we would have to go with the old ones. If you want to hear it, I can give it to you.”

O’Connor said, “You also said, it slipped through at a previous meeting” and Fitzgerald replied, “What I did say was that other players slipped through and the chairman has said that because of that, he decided to allow one more”.

McDonagh added, “We lost our cases at the Hearings Committee, which is totally independent. If we refused that lad tonight I can guarantee you, we would lose it at the Hearings Committee. Next year it will be totally different because the bylaws will be there.”

O’Connor said he has a problem with “the double standards”, adding, “The secretary is the most important person inside in the field”.

Fitzgerald said, “If you are in a Munster club, this will apply. If you are going to have an issue with this, we can go back and get the ruling.”

Denis Tuohy from Whitegate suggested, “this can only work at Cusack Park”.

McDonagh replied, “There is a division. We will go back to Croke Park with it. It will be a lot worse coming back from Croke Park. Adopt this for the first round and come back and discuss it at the June meeting.”
Broadford’s Kevin Ryan asked that the proposal be amended to include the secretary.

Fitzgerald told the meeting that he had attended the particular Central Council meeting when this was discussed. “We wanted seven. Don’t misunderstand why it was changed to five. It was because of incidents. We have had two serious incidents in our county already this year.”

A suggestion from Michael Lee to have “the secretary there instead of one of the selectors” did not meet with the approval of the meeting.

McDonagh again asked “that we improvise for the first round of the championship”.

“That will not be a hard and fast rule because some clubs will go to the guy on the gate, who will say ok. The person that is the most trusted in any club is the secretary. If the secretary of a club is going to get into any type of an altercation with the referee or anybody else, then he shouldn’t be secretary,” said Kilrush official O’Connor.

According to Lissycasey’s Eamonn Finnucane “You cannot make this a bylaw. At 99% of the club games last year, there were no incidents and there were nine or 10 inside. We are over-reacting.”

“The difference between six and seven is not great and, particularly, if that person is the secretary. You can get around a lot if you make it seven to include the secretary,” said O’Curry’s delegate, Michael Curtin.

According to Pat Frawley, “Cusack Park is the only venue where you can implement this” to which chairman McDonagh responded “every pitch in West Clare will be able to do this”.

“There are no hurling matches played in West Clare,” said Feakle’s Mike Daly, to which the chairman replied “we had nine hurling finals in Miltown in 1999”.

“Come back to us in two months and tell us it won’t be implemented. There are easy ways to implement it, don’t have any doubt. We don’t want to go down that road. What we want to do is to co-operate and work together and have a safe environment for people that are playing the game. There have been more games on the sideline that on the pitch. Inside the four lines is where the game should be played, end of story.”

“We will allow the secretary for the first round of the senior championship but this will have to be revisited in June and this may have to go to Croke Park.”

On the proposition of Miltown’s Noel Walsh, seconded by Cooraclare’s Sean Chambers, the amendment was carried.

“We will be implementing it and there will be fines put in place,” McDonagh warned.

“There is hardly a game in Cusack Park where there isn’t some incident, whether it be with stewards, players or mentors. The reaction isn’t very pleasant when they are requested to do something. Clubs have to have responsibility. It’s time these guidelines were brought it. They should be there,” said Ruan delegate Michael O’Regan, a steward at Cusack Park on match days.

St Joseph’s delegate Pat Frawley suggested “if any club breaks these guidelines, they should have their number reduced to five”.