Mickey Cassidy, Ederney St Joseph’s senior team manager;

“We are trying to rush 18 games into 16 weeks with no proper pre-season. There are three cups sitting in the county board office and I can’t see any reason why we cannot play a subsidiary competition to the league. You could split the Division 1 and Division 2 teams together and let everyone play each other and try out new players.

 

“County boys are coming back after a tough pre-season and are then expected to go out to a tough league and a championship. From our point of view and any club’s point of view, these players have absolutely no life. I haven’t met one footballer yet from any club who has come down in favour of this.

 

“In Tyrone they consulted all the clubs and management and they were given options but I think it is very severe after the long year that we have had and what we are coming out of, to go into a full blown league. It is a bit tough.

 

“Whenever the county players are away, a lot of clubs will not be able to fulfill junior fixtures and there is no consideration. Where are the players going to come out of to play junior football? Everyone deserves to play football. If there is no junior football and a player can’t get on the senior team, there is going to be a drop-off and players won’t go to training. A group of people should have been asked to come together and consider the welfare of the player and what was viable to go forward with. 

 

“If some of my senior players come to me and said I can’t play this year I could not argue with them. You would understand and it is a sad reality.”