CORK BOSS BEN O’Connor has expressed his delight at defensive star Eoin Downey being free to play in their upcoming All-Ireland U20 final, while reiterating his belief that player burnout in the early months of the year is the issue the GAA need to tackle.
Senior defender Downey has been unavailable for the Cork U20 side due to the new ruling that prevents players featuring at both levels within a seven-day period.
Downey made his senior championship debut for Cork recently against Tipperary, but missed out as the U20 side claimed Munster honours.
The date change for the U20 final against Offaly to Sunday 4 June benefits Cork, but O’Connor admits it has been a difficult situation for the Glen Rovers player.
“You see him there after the games and the boys jumping around celebrating. Now he’s delighted we’re after winning, but he still didn’t feel part of it because he knows he could be inside there playing.
“He’s been missing out. So it’s been hard on the young fella like. He shouldn’t have to make a decision between twenties and seniors, he should be able to go away and play both.
“Sure of course we’re delighted. It was supposed to be the 27th and he’d have missed out because of that, now it went to the 4th. It isn’t every day a fella gets to play in an All-Ireland final. It’s his last year, so I suppose it means that little bit more to him.
“I suppose the drawback side to that we’ve fellas doing the Leaving Cert on the Wednesday. It isn’t very fair on fellas to play an All-Ireland final on Sunday, then expect them to go and start their Leaving Cert.
“There’s a big crowd of them (doing the Leaving), 12 or 13 of them. I’m sure the boys are happy enough once we’re there, I know it’s not ideal, but once we’re there, they don’t mind.”
Downey is not the only rising star to have been impacted by this rule, Clare’s Adam Hogan also missing out on the recent provincial decider and Limerick’s Cathal O’Neill was absent when they reached last year’s All-Ireland final.
O’Connor is adamant U20 and senior managements can work together to ensure players are not pushed too hard.
“The biggest the issue is that it’s not player burnout this time of year, it’s in January and February there’s player burnout. There’s so much expected out of fellas then. That’s the issue.
“We were here this year and on the Tuesday nights, the secondary schools wouldn’t train with us. On the Thursday nights, the college fellas wouldn’t train with us. We’d split it up, instead of having fellas out four nights a week. They were one night with us and they were one night with their school or their college.
“You’re not going to get the best out of fellas if you’re going to be doing too much with them. So we’ll be able to manage that and there’s no problem there.
“Look at this stage it makes no difference because we’re in an All-Ireland final. But if we were knocked out in the Munster final by a point, Eoin Downey would have been the difference of maybe getting a point. That’s the problem.
“Look, we’re after getting through, we have him now, not like Limerick last year when they were beaten by Kilkenny, beaten by a point and they were short (Cathal) O’Neill.
So look, we’re lucky enough to be in the position we are that we have him back. It’s just a rule that’s there at the moment, hopefully it won’t be there for long more.”
