By Mark Jones
DUBLIN — The fallout following the recent launch of the GAA’s Strategic Review Committee report continues with leading Dublin clubs signaling their intention to reject the committee’s controversial recommendation that the Dublin senior football team be split in two.
Surveys of the county’s senior clubs conducted by both The Sunday Tribune and the Irish edition of The Sunday Times revealed clear hostility to the proposal, with almost 95 percent prepared to reject the SRC initiative out of hand.
Twenty-nine of 31 senior clubs were opposed to the SRC’s move to divide the team into Dublin North and Dublin South by the 2005 All-Ireland championship, according to The Sunday Tribune.
“We need the county to win an All-Ireland, not to be split down the middle,” said two-time All-Ireland medallist Bernard Brogan, who is chairman of St. Oliver Plunkett’s/Eoghan Ruadh. “One or other of the teams would begin to dominate and the weaker one would gradually disintegrate.”
In a statement, the current Dublin senior league champions, Thomas Davis, slammed the SRC plan as “an ill-advised, poorly researched, arbitrary and painful disbandment of a unique core of strength of the GAA.” Meanwhile, the Dublin county board chairman, John Bailey, said that forcing the issue was not the way to make progress. “Dublin is standing united on this,” he added.
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Given that the SRC report will be either discussed at the GAA’s congress in April or at a special congress later in the year, it will be interesting to see how Dublin’s opposition to the proposed change will be viewed at national level. The SRC chairman, Peter Quinn, has already made it clear that he believes the Dublin question is a “matter for everybody in the GAA.”
However, there appears to be more widespread support for an administrative change in Dublin with the county being split into two separate boards. Equally, a leading GAA commentator, Eugene McGee, believes that the SRC plan has merit given that most Dublin GAA members believe their county “is one of the most successful in the GAA.”
McGee points out that the county has not won more than one All-Ireland football title in any of the last seven decades, and has only won the Sam Maguire Cup twice in the last 24 years, while Kerry have won nine titles and Meath three in the same period.
“Dublin has never won the All-Ireland under 21 title since it started in 1965 and has only won three All-Ireland minor titles in the past 42 years,” he said. “The problem for the GAA is that participation in Gaelic games in Dublin city is woefully inadequate and getting worse by the day as the population creeps toward 2 million people.”