Walkovers for almost 11 per cent of League games – CCC secretary outlines difficulties

THE DIFFICULTIES being experienced by Donegal’s GAA clubs and the county’s Competitions Controls Committee (CCC) have been laid out in reports to be presented to delegates at Sunday’s annual County Convention.

Club representatives will gather at the Mount Errigal Hotel in Letterkenny for the annual meeting on Sunday afternoon and the playing, or rather non-playing, of games will again be close to the top of the menu.

Despite a master fixture plan being laid out at the start of the year for clubs, the schedule of the Donegal senior football team tore up many weekends and, when the CCC ran out of ‘starred’ games, the problem reached a head.

On June 28, the morning after Donegal’s Ulster SFC semi-final against Derry in Clones, Gaoth Dobhair, St Michael’s and Glenfin all refused to turn out in All-County League matches which were arranged for that day.

The issues with the club schedule is far from confined to those teams with county players.

In all, 63 walkovers were awarded across all divisions of the All-County Football Leagues in 2015, just shy of 11 per cent of the total number of games, 671, scheduled. 49 of the walkovers were award in the reserve divisions.

“There is a problem with the Reserve League with a lot of non-fielding,” CCC secretary Declan Martin writes in his report, his first in the position.

“There are a lot of issues in relation to a lack of club games in July and August. This is an ongoing problem.

“We need to consult in more detail at the beginning of the year with all the relevant boards and management teams when we are creating the master fixture plan.”

The issue is touched upon in the report of the county fixture planners, Terence McGinley and Edward Molloy, who write: “A worrying aspect is that we may have a new record in the county for the number of walkovers awarded in matches. It is something that we should strive to avoid if at all possible as the playing of games is so vital to all involved in the association.”

Martin believes that drawn Championship games should go to extra time rather than have replays fixed. In a recent change to help alleviate the stress, clubs voted to abolish the promotion-relegation play-offs in the League, meaning the top two will now be promoted with the bottom two relegated.

“2015 was a difficult year for the club Leagues due to the Donegal senior team being drawn in the Ulster preliminary round and also qualifying for the National League semi-finals,” Martin says.

“This denied us six weekends of possible League matches and due to this the matches games, where clubs play without their county players, were used very early in the year and led to difficulties as the year went on.

“The All-Ireland Gaeltacht in Ardara also led to difficulties for the clubs who participated in the finals. As a result of these external influences, there were four matches that were not contested in Division 1 and 2.”