Power calls for GAA to map out plans
By Shane Brophy
Tipperary senior football manager David Power has called on the GAA to provide a road-map to provide some indication of their plans for the rest of the year at both inter-county and club level.
Last Friday, a special congress of the GAA granted the associations management committee emergency powers to alter competition structures and dates should it come to it because of the impact of the coronavirus. However, Power isn't entirely confident there will be any more inter-county action this year.
“If I was a betting man the county is in trouble and the club could be in trouble as well,” he said this week.
“At this stage, Simon Harris (Minister for Health) has basically said there will be no mass crowds allowed for the rest of this year so that puts the inter-county season in jeopardy.”
Tipperary have continued to train individually since March 12th when collective training was suspended by the GAA but the Power says the players won't be able to keep it up for too much longer without something to focus on.
“Our strength & conditioning coach Robbie Cannon is flat out busy with training programs where the players are doing three to four sessions a week on their own. They do a collective zoom session every Tuesday night together which the players look forward to and they enjoy that.
“However, there comes a point, and it is only human nature, where the motivation is going to dip because there is no clarity on the situation. They (GAA) are not coming out and saying if we can't get it going such a date we'll we will have to forget about it.
“We need a road map pretty soon because it is hard to expect inter-county teams to be ready to play in two weeks time whenever they are ready to start again. We would need a bit of time and there has to be some clarity put on it. I know it is very hard and it a unique situation but at the end of the day you can't leave the players and management sitting and waiting.
“One day we hear the National League is going to be finished and another day you hear it won't be finished. There needs to be clarity on the whole situation of what they are hoping to do and what dates are being looked at.”
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