He raises a good point!
All eyes and focus are on today’s All-Ireland SFC final clash between Limerick and Galway, but there are still wider issues that will be debated over in the off season.
One of them is the topic of the length of the inter-county GAA season, and whether finals should go back to the traditional dates in September.
A vocal critic against going back to the longer season has been GAA president Jarlath Burns, and he continued to argue his point in eloquent fashion in today’s match programme, speaking from personal experience and warning against nostalgia.
He said: “There is another an understandable nostalgia for another era. Finals in the first and third weeks of September. League matches before Christmas. Five weeks between League and Championship. Three or four weeks between Championship games.
“I remember that era well, I played in it. And I would not want to go back.
“Nostalgia has a habit of remembering the occasion and forgetting the burden. I remembers the summer Sunday but not the endless Tuesday and Thursday nights that preceded it.
“Lengthening the season does not create more freedom. It means more collective training, more evenings away fro. home and less time for family, friends and a life beyond the county team.
“These men are not professional performers whose season can simply be extended to satisfy the appetite of an audience.
“They have jobs to return to on Monday morning, families who have made sacrifices alongside them and clubs waiting for them when the journey end.
“And there is rarely a holiday at the end of it.”
Powerful stuff from the Armagh man and hard to argue against it.
