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Canavan: College competitions need a pre-Christmas slot

Updated / Tuesday, 7 Feb 2023 06:39
Roscommon and UCD's Daire Cregg is one player involved in both county and college duties at the moment
Roscommon and UCD's Daire Cregg is one player involved in both county and college duties at the moment

Former Tyrone captain Peter Canavan has said that moving the college competitions to a pre-Christmas slot is the best solution in that particular aspect of the fixture calendar debate.

The issue resurfaced on Sunday when Meath manager Colm O'Rourke hit out at the current schedule after his side’s win over Clare, labelling it an "abuse of players."

"This is disgraceful, the abuse of players with this Sigerson Cup. It needs to be put on at a different time of the year," O’Rourke said ahead of Wednesday’s semi-finals.

Canavan believes that O’Rourke is correct and sees a pre-Christmas start as the only real solution.

"With the split season now and the championship being moved forward, and the nature of the league, how it affects the championship... there’s an increased importance in the National League now that has never been there before," he told the RTÉ GAA Podcast.

"That has a knock-on effect to managers, there’s an increased pressure put on managers for their team to perform so they’re putting pressure on their players.

"In some cases players are being asked during the week not to play for their university in the Sigerson Cup so right away players are being put in a situation of, 'do I go against my county manager here but I’m on a scholarship, I’m training with friends here and I know how important the Sigerson and Fitzgibbon Cup is?'.

"Yes, you could push the National League back out a week or two, it gets you out of the more inclement weather as well, which is not a bad thing, but I do believe the Fitzgibbon and the Sigerson are going to have to be moved prior to Christmas."

No rejigging is ever going to suit all parties and a late year college season is sure to conflict with clubs that have reached the latter stages of the All-Ireland series – but Canavan said that's a pill university sides would just have to swallow.

"You’re talking a very low percentage of players that would be involved in that.

"If players are involved with their club then they’ll take the hit, I think they’ll just say 'yeah, this is a once off with the club in an All-Ireland semi-final or final’ and the university are going to have to accept that they may be without some players.

"To play it off in December, for example, I think the players would enjoy it more, there would be a better opportunity to train to play with their university and it gives them more time with the county over the Christmas holidays and January to concentrate fully on the National League and their county team."

Canavan has looked at the Sigerson Cup issue through different perspectives down through the years.

In his student days he represented St Mary’s and reached two finals while player availability was on his radar when he was Fermanagh manager.

Now he’s looking at the player welfare issue as a parent with his son Darragh racking up 149 minutes for Ulster University in the Sigerson Cup between 10 January and 25 January as well as playing all of Tyrone’s National League loss to Roscommon and 53 minutes of Sunday’s win over Donegal.

"I have a man in the house here in that predicament whereby [he is] going up the road to Belfast to perform with Jordanstown and coming back down for county training and county games.

"Something’s got to happen; there has to be a movement."

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