Grounds for concern "weather" we like it or not

Anybody take in a game over the weekend? Stay dry did you? If you did, you did better than most because last Saturday and Sunday were days to test not only your resilience, level of water proofing, but also one’s soul, no matter how much you love your sport.

The rain that swept down on this tiny little part of the world over the past week or two had me wondering just how bad the flood really was and brought back a few unwelcome memories of the 2009 floods that cut Carrick and large parts of the county off from seemingly the rest of the world.

THE FUTURE IS NOW FOR ST MARY'S

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It’s not that bad yet but a few more weeks of this barrage of rain and finding a pitch that resembles a football field and not a rice paddy field is going to take some going.

What the experience of last weekend shows just how committed our sporting community, male and female, truly is. If we all had any sense, no match would have taken place in Avant Money Pairc Sean Mac Diarmada, Boggaun or Carrigallen, the three venues I was at, be it from safety or just simple preservation concerns.

Gaelic football is not cross country running, saying this as a lover of cross-country running and the conditions in Moyne for the opening round of the Connacht Cross-country championships on Saturday were exactly what you’d expect - mud, mud and even more mud! But that’s almost the point of cross-country running - extreme conditions testing you to the extreme.

I’m pretty sure that is not the case for gaelic football or soccer or any of the other team sports where your playing surface is grass. Ok, rugby has a different tolerance, an almost cross-country like quality but it is a very different sport with two teams facing each other in lines and doing battle.

Gaelic games and soccer definitely don’t fit that description - movement, space, the ability to turn on a sixpence is paramount so when the ground beneath your feet has all the consistency of a bowl of soup, you know you’re in for a rough afternoon.

First of all, this is not an attack on any of the grounds I visited at the weekend - up to the last two weeks, I don’t think Avant Money Pairc Sean Mac Diarmada has ever been in better condition than it has this year while Carrigallen’s superb facilities is always  immaculate.

Here and now is all that matters when it comes to County Final day

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Long term planning and development is the key to success for most clubs, writes John Connolly, but once you get into a County Final, it is the here and now that matters

Boggaun is a spectacular pitch - it hosted the Junior C Final on Saturday in torrential downpours yet on Sunday morning, I reckon it was the best surface in the county as I walked across it before the Ladies Junior Final between Glencar Manorhamilton and Annaduff.

But a deluge that really had me doubting my sanity as I huddled beneath my Everton umbrella, trying to balance phone, notebook and pen and keep an eye on the action while my waterproof boots were proving to be anything but.

The fact that players were able to keep their feet says much for their skills and the superb surface underneath but it almost felt like walking on water by the time the game ended and Boggaun was much, much better than Pairc Sean and Carrigallen.

The question is what to do about it - nobody can do anything about the weather, it is in God’s hands and it was only a couple of months ago we were worried about pitches being too hard as we endured record Summer temperatures with water breaks introduced for the safety of players.

So I wonder where is that concern now - up and down the country, clubs and counties are rushing to finish club competitions in the calendar year but as the rain never seems to end, pitches are becoming scarcer and scarcer as clubs seek to protect their most valuable asset - their pitch.

Truth be told, I left Pairc Sean on Sunday evening convinced no games could be held there until the new year such was the damage done to the playing surface. We can debate all we want about the wisdom of hosting two matches on the one pitch on the one day but if I was on the Park committee, I’d have been tearing my hair out watching kids having sliding competitions in the muck after Sunday’s Intermediate Final.

THERE'S NO PERFECT WAY TO LOSE

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What’s the harm, you say? Well, just wait until some poor unfortunate is injured or  a game is called off because pitches can’t, in all good conscience, host a game because hundreds of fans lepping around in celebration can’t have done the pitch any good.

I’ve no problem with fans celebrating their club’s success, I’d do the same, but I wonder where the GAA’s vaunted community spirit comes in - the hurlers of Cluainin and Carrick-on-Shannon deserve  access to Pairc Sean every bit as much as all the footballers who’ve graced  the famed venue over the last few weekends  but nobody gave them any thought and it wouldn’t surprise me if Sunday’s Hurling Final has to be  moved somewhere else.

What’s to be done? Clubs have done trojan work in providing facilities but I look at the revolution that has taken place in Sligo Leitrim Soccer over the last ten years - it wasn’t unusual to go months on  end without games as pitches were deemed unplayable.

But the situation has changed utterly  with the advent of astro turf pitches, something the GAA has yet to fully embrace. By my count, from Dromahair to Ballisodare to Sligo Town, there are six full-sized astro turf pitches which means the weather no longer  causes the postponement of games.

I’m not saying Leitrim clubs should be  installing 4G pitches but they should be looking at improving the quality of what’s there right now. And I know clubs and the County Board are doing that but maybe the conditions players have endured last weekend will hasten the conversation in a few more clubs.

It won’t come without pain - fundraising is always on the Clár at every club meeting but while we proclaim that the players are the most important people in any organisation - and they are -  but right behind that, you’ve got to have the infrastructure, be it coaching or facilities. 

Time to split the split season

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Right now, we  need to push the facilities agenda and I’d hope everyone buys into that because we’re in for a few tough months if the rain continues.

Ballinamore’s Pairc Sheain Ui Eslin is out of bounds right now as they re-lay their pitch and  I know the County Board have big plans to develop a new playing surface in Pairc Sean that could see it closed for anything up to nine months.

That’s going to hurt - for club, county and juvenile games and especially for fans but maybe the absence of access might finally get us to appreciate these simple patches of green grass all the more.