by Jackie Cahill

Former Wexford hurler Declan Ruth has revealed a "frightening" drop-out rate as high as 80 per cent among young club players in the county, due to the lack of a defined fixtures calendar.

Ruth, who's closely aligned to the Club Players Association's Fixtures Coordinator Liam Griffin, is heavily involved in recruiting new members to the fledgling body.

But Ruth, who agrees with the CPA secretary Declan Brennan that everything's an option, including potential strike action, believes that the problem is "easily fixed" with dialogue.

Ruth, a Leinster SHC winner in 2004, has embarked on a major CPA membership drive in Wexford.

And he said: "Everything's an option but it's easily fixed, if the GAA sit down with the CPA and the GPA to thrash it out.

"I know the CPA have really exciting plans, three different options in place including a Master fixtures list to take all competitions into account.

"All they want is that forum to be heard and that's the frustrating thing, that they're not being listened to.

"It seems the GAA is just promoting the higher end, where 5 per cent of the playing population is involved.

"In Wexford, the drop-out rate is frightening, 70-80 per cent from the moment they first walk through the club gate until they hit their mid-20s.

"The U16 Rosslare hurling team got to a Premier final, where they lost by a point, and ten years later they were in an intermediate B final and not one of those players was left.

"We can replicate that in our own club - we had three minors winning teams with the Rapparees and now we're struggling to get 20 for a senior team.

"We're not talking ten or 12 years there, that's within the last four or five years and it's happening across the entire country.

"A major reason is that they to go to soccer and rugby for a regular programme of games.

"All GAA players want is that uniformity of fixture and while we're not disagreeing with everything the GAA hierarchy has come up with, we're saying let's take it ten steps further and have a complete discussion on the overall picture."

Ruth insists that the current fixtures system is "broken" and that the CPA's mantra - 'fix the fixtures' - is all they are concerned with.

He said: "It doesn't matter if we're recognised or not - we just have one agenda and that's to fix the fixture problems for the normal club player in Ireland.

"There's a recognition that it's broken from the vast majority, except it seems the hierarchy within the GAA.

"While they're doing an enormous amount of good work, this is the elephant in the room that they literally cannot see.

"The CPA don't want anything else, it's not about being on executives or monetary reimbursement - it's the fix the fixtures because it's crippling the grass roots."

Tweet

Most Read Stories