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Kilmacud Crokes’ Dan O'Brien celebrates at the final whistle. Lorraine O’Sullivan/INPHO
tricky situation

'It just seems impossible to keep it at bay' - GAA clubs struggling to contain Covid

Sides left in the AIB All-Ireland club championship are doing their best to avoid outbreaks.

AS COVID CONTINUES to spread, GAA clubs left in race for provincial and All-Ireland glory must contend with that reality.

The high transmissibility of the omicron variant has forced a host of Premier League games to be postponed, so naturally it is far more difficult for amateur teams to handle.

At any point they may lose key men for games, while players are being turned away from training sessions as a precaution if they don’t pass temperature checks.

Then there’s the long-term affects of the virus for athletes.

Portarlington manager Martin Murphy noted as much after their narrow Leinster semi-final defeat to Kilmacud Crokes on Saturday night.

“We were beaten by the better team but a number of lads had cramp and coincidentally they were all lads who had Covid in recent weeks,” he said.

“After the ’21 [county] final we actually had nine players that had Covid. They were all out of isolation on the Tuesday of the week that we played St Loman’s and it didn’t seem to affect them too much that day.

“But, ironically, [on Saturday] four of the players that had cramp all suffered Covid in the last three weeks.

“We can only put it down to that and, as I said before, we’re not making an excuse: we were beaten by a better team. They came out in the second-half and definitely upped their game. We’re disappointed but we will be back next year and give it another rattle.”

It’s also possible that Portarlington were fatigued because they hadn’t come across a team with the conditioning of Kilmacud on a field like Croke Park so far this season.

martin-murphy Portarlington's Martin Murphy. Lorraine O’Sullivan / INPHO Lorraine O’Sullivan / INPHO / INPHO

Either way, Murphy’s point on the difficulties for clubs still involved in the championship stands.

New pandemic measures will see the enforced closure of pubs and restaurants at 8pm, which will quell a great deal of socialising over Christmas.

Kilmacud Crokes will play Naas in the Leinster final on the weekend of 8/9 January and manager Robbie Brennan is aware a balance must be struck over the festive period.

“You’ve got to give the lads freedom,” he says.

“If you try to shut it down and say you can’t go out… It helps with the pubs being closed, it maybe the best thing Tony Holohan did for us but you just have to give them that bit of freedom and hopefully when we are back they will be ready to go.

“We’ll still be training, it’ll just be the odd gap here and there.”

Covid has entered the Kilmacud camp on a number of occasions in recent months.

“It has been tricky. We’ve had a few cases and one or two guys missing a few games and not being able to train because of it so extremely difficult but sure everybody is in the same boat and you just have to live with it.

“We’ve been trying to follow all those guidelines but it just seems impossible to keep it at bay,” Brennan continued.

“And I suspect that somewhere between now and 8/9 January we will certainly have to deal with it again, unfortunately. It’s not going away, we’ll just keep an eye on it.”

Portarlington did their best to take precautions at training sessions, but it’s almost impossible to prevent players from picking up the virus in their day jobs if they’re working in the community.

“It’s very difficult because we have a system where we temperature check lads coming to training and if their temperature is over 37.5 they are not coming in,” said Murphy.

“We have had to turn three or four lads away who just had a common cold or bit of a flu, they got their PCR and it wasn’t Covid.

“You’re looking over your shoulder the whole time with it and it is difficult to keep it out of a training camp where you have maybe 30 young lads that are coming from different families from around the town and working.

“We have five or six school teachers and one or two of them have had Covid and got it through their occupation so it is difficult and people don’t really realise that. Trying to keep a panel of 30 players healthy is another string you have to have to your bow and deal with two or three times a week.

“The numbers are getting very bad now. I’m no expert but hopefully things will improve in 2022. I don’t hold up much hope for that.

“We are going into a fourth or fifth stage of lockdowns now and it is very difficult for GAA, soccer and rugby to avoid being affected by it.”

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