I’m coming late to the party on this one – two days late, in fact – but it’s still worth noting the announcement made the other day about the Mayo LGFA Senior panel for this year’s Championship – which is here.
Here’s the panel that was announced on Friday:
A total of fourteen clubs from across the county are represented on the Senior panel for the forthcoming Championship. County champions Knockmore lead the way with five players, while Hollymount and Westport have four players each. In a sign of the changing fortunes at club level, Carnacon have just one players – the evergreen Fiona McHale – on the list.
Notable absentees from the panel include all the players from the county – with the exception of Rachel Kearns – who played in the AFLW earlier this year. This means that for the first time in a while Mayo won’t have the services of the likes of Sarah Rowe or the Kelly sisters for the forthcoming Championship.
It’s a campaign that’s set to start with a bang at Tuam Stadium next Sunday as the opening match is a tasty Connacht final clash with Galway (throw-in 4pm). The best of luck to manager Michael Moyles and all the players then and for the rest of this year’s Championship too.
Mayo LGFA recently launched a 50/50 Lotto, the first draw for which takes place on Monday, 23rd May at 9pm. More details on that are here.
Willie Joe. Was that a management decision to omit the AFLW players or was it the players themselves who didn’t commit at this point?
I’ve no idea, Travelling Wilbury, but I guess it could well be either.
Its unlikely the management had a policy of omitting the AFLW players – if they had Rachel Kearns would have been omitted.
The AFLW season has changed with it’s start date moved forward. Any LGFA players who intended ongoing out playing AFLW must report for pre-season training in July, which in effect means leaving Ireland in late June.
This means that those players would not be around anyway for the latter stages of the Championship, with the first three rounds of the senior championship being played in June. I suppose the decision was taken that if the players weren’t around for the entire championship then they weren’t going to be included in the final named squad.
To be honest, it is going to be an issue going forward. More and more players will be enticed out there as the AFLW grows in popularity. It’s hard to blame the girls that do want to go out but, as a club manager, it will have a real negative effect on our own game here. When a club, never mind a county, loses the calibre of player that can compete in a professional sport, it almost immediately rules out that club from it’s championship.