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Leinster player Sean O'Brien. INPHO/Ryan Byrne
objection

Carlow club Fighting Cocks protest against championship revamp

The GAA club of Leinster rugby star Sean O’Brien, who was a selector with their intermediate football team this year, have hit out against their county board.

THE CARLOW GAA home club of Irish rugby star Sean O’Brien is protesting against radical new proposals to change the structure of the local county championships, which are to be put forward for ratification at a county board meeting tomorrow night.

Fighting Cocks, a Gaelic football club based near the town of Tullow, were crowned Carlow intermediate football champions on October 14th last when they triumphed by 1-10 to 1-6 against Éire Óg in Dr Cullen Park.

Sean O’Brien was one of the team’s selectors with his brother William lining out at centre-back on a team that achieved a victory which looked to have ensured the club would regain senior status after a 73-year absence.

However Carlow GAA chiefs have tabled new proposals which would see a revamp of the county’s football championships that would see three grades – senior, intermediate and junior A – of eight teams apiece in existence.

Currently there are two grades, senior and intermediate, consisting of twelve teams each but those are to be split into three tiers now which would result in Fighting Cocks still playing intermediate football next year.

A group of 80 people comprising of Fighting Cocks club officials, players and supporters met with Carlow county board officials on Sunday night to voice their concerns but there are still fears that they will be denied the opportunity to play senior football in 2013 if a vote backs the new proposals tomorrow night.

Leinster player O’Brien, who is currently sidelined through injury, was not present at the meeting on Sunday night as he was visiting his brother in Jersey. However his brother William was one of number of vocal speakers who expressed their opposition to the changes.

“For a small club like ours, to win the intermediate championship was a huge moment,” club secretary Niall Byrne told TheScore.ie. “The scenes of celebration in Dr Cullen Park were incredible and many Carlow GAA people would agree with that description.

“We had no inkling this was coming down the tracks. The first we heard of it was via email on November 2nd, just two days before we faced Monasterevin in the Leinster championship on the Sunday in a game we were well beaten in. It’s taken the complete gloss off our victory.

“The county board have shown complete disdain to us and what we achieved this year. Our players put in a huge effort in training 125 times this year and the prize we thought we had in reaching senior football has now been taken away from us. They haven’t so much rained on our parade as pissed on it.”

Dr Cullen Park, where Fighting Cocks won the Carlow intermediate final this year.
Pic: INPHO/Donall Farmer.

Byrne also revealed how the rugby expertise of O’Brien had been central to the plans the club had already started making for competing at senior level next year.

“Sean has been fantastic. Already he was helping us look forward to next year and had been devising a weights programme for our players to do over the winter in conjunction with Kieran Nolan, a club player who is on the Carlow panel.

“Sean was brilliant this year as well and made a speech the Thursday night before the county final which was very emotional. He said that he would have given anything to be togging out with all of his friends who he had grown up with.

“We’re trying to hope that there is some light at the end of the tunnel but the county board only need over 50% of the vote tomorrow night to pass this. We’re going to have a peaceful protest before the meeting.

“We’re just hoping that it will work out and we can get to play senior football in Carlow next year, which is something we believe we have earned. We played in the intermediate championship all year in the thinking that if we won, we would get up senior. That was the reward and now we find at the end of the year that it is being taken away from us.”

Talking Points: 2012 GAA Club Championships

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