Sigerson Cup is special but county managers are putting pressure on

ANOTHER Sigerson Cup has come and gone with NUIG the deserved champions following their three-point win over UL in the final at Carlow IT.

It was obviously a disappointing night for the Cork contingent, Sean Powter, who started centre-back for the Limerick students only for injury to force his retirement at half-time, and Newcestown’s Gearoid O’Donovan, who played right half-back.

The Sigerson is normally played in the depths of winter and has been long associated with horrendous weather and quagmire pitches, taking an obvious toll on players.

Conditions for this year’s final were typical, strong winds and drenching showers contributing to a high degree of difficulty though surfaces have improved immeasurably over the years.

Powter is now ruled out of tomorrow’s league tie away to Derry and added another storyline to the long-running saga about the role of the Sigerson in the GAA calendar.

The competition dates back to 1911 and has been played for annually, initially by universities and more lately institutes of technology some of which have gained university status.

Only three times has the Sigerson not been played for, due to the two World Wars and the pandemic, but the problem surrounds finding a suitable date in a very congested season.

This season it was squeezed around the time that pre-season competitions, like the McGrath Cup in Munster, were starting and also clashing with the beginning of the national league, which carries a greater emphasis because of its connection to the championship.

It seems every county has players involved with third-level competitions be it Sigerson, Trench Cup and even the Freshers, who are eligible for U20.

Naturally, there have been injuries, including high-profile players like Mayo’s Tommy Conroy which prompted county manager James Horan to share his tuppence worth during the week.

He called the demands on young inter-county players ‘unsustainable’ in the wake of Conroy’s ACL injury.

Conroy had been double jobbing with Mayo in the league on weekends while on Sigerson Cup duty with NUIG in midweek.

His season came to a crashing halt when a devastating knee injury in the third-level quarter-final, which took place two days after he played the second half of Mayo’s league draw with Donegal.

In an interview with the Mayo News, Horan criticised the scheduling of third-level GAA competitions as the average age of inter-county panels continue to drop.

“It’s just unsustainable. If you were designing it from scratch, the current scheduling of the Sigerson would be the worst case you could possibly design,” he said.

“The demands on players don’t make sense at any level and we’ve worked hard to protect our players.

We’ve had sessions where we have nine guys training and 22 not training. There are more guys not training than training most nights.

“We have to have them there because we need to go through how we play, but this situation doesn’t make any sense to anyone.

“I’m not sure about the U20 competition and when that can be played but certainly the Sigerson must be pulled out of where it is.

“That’s the first and obvious thing that needs to happen. Can it be pulled pre-Christmas like it used to be?

“I think that’s what should happen and see how it works. It’s just not right and I’d say the same thing if Tommy hadn’t got injured.

SQUEEZED

“The Sigerson cannot be played the way it currently is. Inter-county football is getting younger and younger, and that age group is being constantly squeezed.

“Players are trying to play for us, and they’ve got Sigerson or Trench Cup and the U20s as well.” The situation reached farcical levels last month when MTU Kerry Campus and the Kerry county team both played on the same day.

Two players, Tony Brosnan and Jack Savage, lined out for MTU in the afternoon on their own patch in Tralee before travelling to Templetuohy in north Tipperary and coming on for the second-half against Tipp in the McGrath Cup.

It summed up an absurd position that the players found themselves in, attempting to serve two masters at the same time.

Clearly, change is required. Stop Sigerson players from inter-county activity until their competition is completed is an obvious solution.