GO THE BLUES: The NSW GAA teams received their jerseys last week. At the presenatation were (left to right) Tommy Joe Johnston (NSW Mens Football Team Manager), Gerry Daly of Killard Excavations, Damien Flaherty (NSW player) and Seamus Collins (Coach NSW Mens Football Team).

The 2011 Kepplers Australasian Gaelic Games will be held in Brisbane at Gaelic Park, Bowhill Road, Willawong from Sunday October 2 through to the finals on Saturday October 8.

Brisbane’s Gaelic Park has endured a tough year with floods devastating the facility in January. But a concerted volunteer campaign has resurrected the park to its former glory.

Camogie will be part of the games for the first time with teams from WA, Victoria, NSW and Queensland. A number of games are also set down to be played under lights including the Camogie final.

There are 20 teams competing with five men’s, four women’s and three minor in football plus four hurling and four camogie. A total of 48 games will be staged over the seven days making the 2011 Championships one of the biggest ever held.

The number would have been a record if the rugby World Cup wasn’t being staged at the same time as this has seen the Auckland and Wellington teams unable to travel. Close to 500 players will take part.

In hurling there is an extra incentive to participate.

The “All Star” team which will comprise the best 25 players from the Championships will be invited to play against a touring Irish hurling club. The match will be the curtain raiser to the International Rules game at Etihad Stadium on Friday 28 October.

At the conclusion of the games a Presentation Function will be held at the Gabba  with in excess of 600 people attending.

Joe McDonagh, ex President of the GAA in Ireland and current Chairman of the GAA Overseas Committee will be one of the guests of honour.

During the evening, awards will be made to the best player in each of the five codes as well as the announcement of the five “All Star” Teams.

Each player selected will be presented with a commemorative medal.

For more details, visit the official website here.

The Auckland GAA has spoken out over what it claims is a lack of support from Croke Park ahead of this year’s Australasian Games, scheduled for late September in the New Zealand city.

Association Secretary Jane Quinn said that the Auckland GAA had been “left out in the cold” by the parent body in Dublin.

“We are struggling,” Ms Quinn told the Irish Echo.

“We are hosting the 2010 games in Auckland which will see five Australian States and three New Zealand states taking part. The event will cost us $50,000 to host.

“We have to purchase O’Neill balls from Australia and have them shipped to us.

“We are also having to pay for an updated referee course which we pay [the Australasian body] for.”

The Auckland GAA has had to pay for Australasian GAA Secretary Gerard Roe to fly to New Zealand to conduct the referees’ course.

A separate source within the GAA told the Echo that the Auckland GAA had to pay for Mr Roe’s flight and accommodation as well as a $500 per day fee for running the course.

Alice Springs-based Gerard Roe is employed by Croke Park to administer Gaelic Games in Australasia.

Ms Quinn did not criticise Mr Roe directly but questioned the efficacy of having the GAA’s sole employee in this region based in the remote Northern Territory town.

“Alice Springs might as well be London for us,” she said.

Clearly frustrated by what she sees as a dysfunctional hierarchical structure, Ms Quinn said that her association would consider disassociating from the Australasian body.

“We would, however if we did we would not be allowed to play in their championship.

These are the only games we get outside our own league so really we need Australia to compete,” she said.

Despite the lack of support, the Auckland GAA does what it can to promote Gaelic games in New Zealand.

“We employ a development officer in Auckland who goes around intermediate and high schools promoting Gaelic games. We have to fundraise for his wages which in my opinion is a disgrace,” Ms Quinn said.

“If Croke Park want to promote themselves they should be paying for these people instead of secretaries.  I have been doing the same job as Gerard [Roe] in Auckland, however I do not get paid and I have a full time job as well.  Yet I have a five year strategic plan and a five year development plan for Auckland.”

Ms Quinn said that her association had received “no money from Croke Park or the Australasian body in the past ten years.”

Auckland’s outburst was prompted by reports in the Irish Echo that a senior GAA official had dismissed the Australian GAA as a “black hole” with regard to funding.

Croke Park denied that this represented their view and pointed an investment of €60,000 into the Western Australian GAA to develop Tom Bateman Oval as evidence of their commitment to this region.

However, in the past two years alone, Croke Park has spent over €2m on the overseas development of the Gaelic Games.

Apart from the cost of employing Mr Roe, the Irish Echo cannot find any evidence of any of this money coming to Australia or New Zealand.

Each year, players representing their states must take annual leave and travel, at their own expense, to take part in the Australasian GAA Championships. The host association must also cover the costs of the event.

“We are trying to get sponsorship and do fundraising in-house which is a full time job in itself,” Ms Quinn said.

This year’s Australasian Games will run from September 27 to October 2 at Trust Stadium in Auckland.

The NSW GAA is facing a crisis, scrambling to secure a ground on which to play the 2010 season, now just weeks away.
The organisation’s traditional ground, Princes Park in Auburn, is almost certain to be re-allocated to another sport by the local council.

The leadership of the NSW GAA has painted this as a sleight on the Irish community, threatening to sue the council if any effort was made to reallocate the ground but from viewing the correspondence related to the matter, the writing has been on the wall for some years that the council favoured offering the use of Princes Park to a club or organisation with more of a stake in the local community.

Virtually none of the GAA’s players live in the Auburn Council area and even if the GAA had created a youth development programme, local Auburn kids would not have benefited.

The NSW GAA appears to have ignored the very strong indications from Council that  they were going to lose the ground. No plan B appears to have been developed with the result that this year’s competition is now under threat.

However, the GAA’s eviction from the current site, if it goes ahead, may set the organisation on a path to a more stable and reliable home ground.

Princes Park has long been a source of debate and discussion among GAA people in Sydney. In the past, the ground and its location were less of an issue as many Irish lived in the inner and outer west of the city.

In recent years however, with the emergence of County Bondi as the predominant enclave of young Irish, access to the ground became a major problem. Princes Park is almost impossible to get to by public transport, a fact which has served as a disincentive for players to compete and for fans to go along and observe.

Even if there is some eleventh hour rethink on the allocation of Princes Park for 2010, the NSW GAA will now devote all its energy into finding a new home for Gaelic Games in Sydney.

In order for the game to thrive, it will be necessary for the ground to pass some rudimentary common-sense considerations.

Top of the list should be accessibility, the ground should be near public transport.

The best result would be a shared facility arrangement with a rugby, Aussie Rules or cricket club. Such initiatives have worked very well in the United States and indeed in Perth where the WAGAA received significant grants from both Croke Park and the Irish Government to help develop Tom Bateman Park and Pavillion.

The WAGAA had set itself a plan to make the ground its permanent home.

It secured support from local, state and federal government before the GAA and Irish Government decided to help out. The facility is shared with a local baseball club who use it during the summer months.

A management committee, made up of representatives from both organisations, runs the facility. The result is that Gaelic Games has a dedicated home in Perth for the next 15 years at least.

The NSW GAA might want to seek out advice from the WAGAA about how to find a permanent home and make it work. There must be clubs, councils and even schools out there who are seeking partnerships to develop grounds and facilities.

The Western Australian GAA has been the only local sporting organisation to secure significant funding from Ireland.
While Australia continues to miss out, funds are regularly allocated to the United States, Britain and even Asia to develop Gaelic Games.

The current ground crisis in NSW GAA is an opportunity for the organisation to recalibrate its priorities, develop new strategies and seek out new leaders with energy, ideas and achieveable  vision for the future.