In his final address to Congress as GAA Director General, Páraic Duffy, not for the first time, called on counties to sort out their club fixtures and not come calling to Croke Park for help.
"It's not their (Croke Park or Central Council) responsibility, you must sort out your own affairs," he said.
"Also if counties appoint a manager who is not interested in the club scene, then don't appoint him."
Those words were uttered some six weeks out from the designated 'club month' of April. It would seem that counties have embraced the concept in different ways. Some have their affairs up an running, but in the main there has been little club activity.
Antrim joint hurling manager Terence McNaughton says a "toxic undercurrent" has developed between club and county over the GAA’s decision to ring-fence the month of April for clubs only.
McNaughton has revealed that many of his current panel are being pulled in two directions because of a "crazy and disastrous" national fixtures programme that he believes should be "binned". The Saffrons beging their Joe McDonagh campaign against Meath next weekend.
Speaking on RTÉ Radio's Sunday Sport, former Armagh player Aaron Kernan feels that giving individual counties the powers to sort out their own affairs is not working and that it will take much work from the power brokers in Croke Park to fix the problem .
"Some time soon we need to take a broader look at where the Association is going," he said.
"It's going to take massive call from somebody to fix it. I fully believe that if it fixed our games will take off even more. Our county players will have more time to focus on the county and club players will get what they want - certainty to their season - when it starts, when it stops.
Asking individual counties to manage it? Look, it's clearly not working, with county board taking too much direction from the county manager. The club player is not cracking a fair crack at it. We need a proper fixture list laid out - club, county, colleges. As things stand, individual counties cannot police themselves."
Former Kildare star Johnny Doyle was also part of the discussion and accepts that it will be a "difficult fix", though he did add that "things have worked well" this month in Kildare.
GAA journalist Damien Lawlor called on a motion to be passed at Congress that is drafted into the rule book to ensure that April is properly ringfenced as a 'club' month.
Listen to the full discussion.
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