Horan calls for college competitions to be moved
MAYO manager James Horan believes the Sigerson Cup and other college competitions should not be played during the National Leagues.
The scheduling came in for fierce criticism once again when Tommy Conroy suffered a season-ending injury playing for NUI Galway in the Sigerson just days after playing a full 70 minutes against Donegal in the National Football League.
Horan has called for those competition to return to their pre-Christmas slot and has warned more and more inter-county players will walk away if the schedule is not altered.
"If there wasn’t an injury (to Tommy), it’s still not right either. I’ve been saying this for ages, the Sigerson can’t be put in where there is National League. Inter-county football is getting younger and younger. The younger age group is who you’re squeezing. You have the Trench Cup and the Under 20 also.
"If you’re designing this from scratch, this would be the worst case you could design. It doesn’t make any sense at any level.
"We can have sessions with 22 guys not training and only eight or nine training because of club, back from club, colleges. We don’t train a lot of the guys a lot of the time. We have them there to go through how we want to play.
"I’m not sure with the Under 20 and when that can be played but the Sigerson needs to be pulled from where it is. Can it be run pre-Christmas like it used to be? I think that’s what should happen and see how it works from there.
"With the split-season, you look at Darren McHale and Aiden Orme, they have no off-season. When inter-county was run in conjunction with the club, at least mentally there was a three- or four-month break.
"That’s what will cause burn off and you’ll see more people leave inter-county football if we continue where we’re at," warned Horan.