Top coach slates Mayo Football League fixture scheduling

A top Super League coach has slammed the Mayo League fixtures scheduling, saying that playing Thursday- Sunday – Thursday is making it nearly impossible for clubs to field competitive teams, and giving players no time to recover from knocks and injuries.

Claremorris coach, Simon Collins, was speaking to The Mayo News, after his side’s loss to Castlebar Celtic on Thursday evening.

“It is very unfair on clubs to have to play two games a week, week-in-week-out. It might be okay occasionally, but every week is too much. Tonight our side was decimated with players not available due to injuries that need time to heal. You will always have somebody away, be it college or working or whatever, but to have nine of your first team squad unavailable is beyond what is reasonable. We were out tonight and now we are out again on Saturday night. And we have had weeks of this.

“We haven’t trained in a month,” Collins said. “We can’t risk players picking up knocks. Players need time to recover from matches, even without injuries, and the current schedule is very unfair on all clubs.

“We know the season was delayed at the start with the weather and the Oscar Traynor Cup, and the Interprovincial tournament. But there’s no need to schedule it all in so tight with two games a week. The season could be extended a few weeks at the end to make up the lost games. This has taken its toll on the lads physically and mentally, and we're really struggling because of it, with injuries now. I think it could have been handled better.”

Collins points to professional teams, saying even they complain about fixture build-up.

“They have access to physios and they have access to recovery centres. They have access to everything. We don't have access to any of that. We don't have the funds to facilitate it. But yet we're expected to play two games every week. It’s very unreasonable,” he said.

The criticism comes on the back of a similar attack by Kiltimagh Knock United coach, James Costello, who told The Mayo News  that it was too much to expect amateur players to play on Thursday night and again on Saturday.

When The Mayo League set out its fixtures schedule for the season there were no Thursday games listed, but the unexpected success of the Mayo Oscar Traynor Cup team, the Interprovincial weekend and the wet month of March, all meant that the opening weeks of the season were thrown into disarray.