Survey
Ger Flanagan
FOUR out of five club players in Mayo are planning on returning to training and competitive games when action resumes in the weeks ahead.
That’s according to a Mayo News survey which was conducted last weekend among just over 600 players from all 47 Gaelic football clubs in the county, as well as the four senior hurling clubs, in light of the GAA’s ‘Safe Return to Gaelic Games’ document being released last Friday.
However, 15 percent of the club players who responded to the survey say they are still ‘unsure’ about returning to training and playing this season, with just over four percent stating that they will not be returning in light of Covid-19.
A total of 604 responses to the survey were received by midnight on Sunday, June 7.
The Mayo News survey asked players’ two questions:
1) If they were still planning to play club championship when it resumes this year?
A total of 488 players (80.79 percent) answered ‘Yes’ with 91 (15.07 percent) answering ‘Unsure’ and 25 (4.14 percent) players answering ‘No’.
2) If they were planning on resuming training when the club grounds reopen on June 29?
From the 603 responses (one was skipped), 478 (79.27 percent) players indicated that they will be returning to training, with 99 (16.42 percent) stating that they are still unsure and 26 (4.31 percent) players indicating they will not be returning to training in 2020.
According to the GAA’s ‘roadmap’ document, club gates will reopen on June 29, allowing teams to start non-contact training in groups of no more than ten people and two coaches in a designated area of the field.
Contact training for clubs will not commence until July 20, with club competitions receiving the green light to commence from July 31 onwards.
There will then be a period of eleven weeks — until October 11 — for club football to take place. Under the GAA’s roadmap document, members of senior inter-county squads are only permitted to train collectively from September 14.
