By Katrina Brennan

FERMANAGH manager Kieran Donnelly has said they were “blindsided” by the decision to suspend the Dr McKenna Cup next year.

The decision comes following a campaign over a number of years by the GPA (Gaelic Players’ Association) to abolish the pre-season inter-county competitions and at the weekend, the GAA Central Council voted to “pause” the tournaments next year.

“I’d heard murmurings of it the year before, that they were discussing it and the next thing was that it was gone. So, it just seemed to come on us very quick, without major discussion on it, to be honest,” said the Erne boss.

The provincial competition kickstarts the intercounty season and had previously got underway in January, offering counties an opportunity to trial players and systems of play before the league swung into action.

The removal of the competition, which was formed almost 100 years ago, in 1927, has left Donnelly among others feeling “disappointed” by the decision.

“It’s a competition that serves great purpose for everyone, for county managers and for players because it gives you a natural lead into a league.

“You’re going to be looking challenge games anyway and I always think the benefit of playing McKenna Cup is that you’ll be playing a good level of opposition. I think it’s a major loss to us, especially.”

onnelly admitted that he struggled to understand the logic of the decision to put a ‘pause’ on the tournament for a one-year trial period.

“You’re going to be playing games anyway, so I’m not sure what the main purpose of it is. The other thing with it, as well is that there’s going to be new rules in place come the start of the National League and to me that’s a double whammy because you’re going to need competitive games to try to implement the rules.

“If they go ahead with the new rules, which it looks as though they are – en masse, it is going to be a major change to our game going forward.

“It’s probably going to be ground-breaking what’s going to try to be implemented and it seems that you’re not going to have a pre-season competition to at least practice those before you go into the cut and thrust of the league.”

Some of the rules which have been trialled in ‘sandbox’ games by the Gaelic Football Review Committee led by former Dublin All-Ireland winning manager Jim Gavin include a 40 metre scoring arc allowing two points for a score beyond the arc, four points for a goal, a revised advanced mark and teams having a minimum of three players in their own half at all times, are just a few of the changes that could be rolled out next year.

Donnelly was part of an online meeting involving all the inter-county managers last Thursday evening, headed by Gavin, where they discussed the proposed changes and the news that soon followed with regards to the McKenna Cup “annoyed” the Fermanagh boss.

“You were at least going to try to play them in that competition because every county takes the league serious.

“Not to have good competitive games going into it is the disappointing thing.”

The reasons given for the decision to call a halt on the pre-season tournaments were to enhance player welfare and to guard against spiralling costs of preparing inter-county teams.