IN ALL FAIRNESS - Orla O'Dwyer put in an impossible position
In an era where women's sport has been pushed to the forefront than ever before that two organisations in the same family seem to be fighting for the same space rather than sharing it.
To say that the situation regarding Orla O'Dwyer and the clash of the All Ireland semi-finals involving the Tipperary senior camogie and intermediate ladies football teams on Saturday week isn't surprising would be an understatement.
This has been going on for years with games involving both the Camogie Association and the Ladies Gaelic Football Association being pencilled in for the same day, even though there might be dual players involved with one county.
The era of the dual player is over in senior mens hurling and football but it is still alive and well in ladies sports, particularly in Cork where they have produced camogie and ladies football players over the last twenty years, most notably Briege Corkery and Rena Buckley, the latter a winner of 18 All Ireland senior medals in both codes prior to her retirement last year.
Now people will say that one player in Orla O'Dwyer shouldn't put out either the Kilkenny or Sligo, Tipperary's opponents in those semi-finals or indeed O'Dwyer's team-mates themselves on both squads.
However, this issue is more about camogie, and particularly ladies football fighting for the same piece of the promotional pond on the same weekend both competitions will be dwarfed as it is by the All Ireland Senior Hurling Final between Tipperary and Kilkenny.
With no skin in the game on this issue, the whole issue appears to be the fault of the Ladies Gaelic Football Assocation who want to maximise their promotional ability by playing their intermediate semi-finals on 17th August with live television coverage, with their senior semi-finals not being on until 25th August at Croke Park.
Playing the intermediate semi-finals on 17th August was always going to create a problem for Tipperary should both the senior camogie team also reach a semi-final which we only were sure of last weekend. Tipperary made their feelings aware soon after the masters fixtures plan for the LGFA was released last January but they have gotten little hop.
Indeed at the LGFA Congress last March, CEO Helen O'Rourke said they would make every effort to avoid dual clashes but added “it's not as simple as switching a game to facilitate two or three games. Managers have to take responsibility.”
Now isn't that a kick in the teeth to those players that love both games and indeed, in the case of Orla O'Dwyer, she loves both equally and doesn't have a favourite.
The clash on Saturday week put her in an impossible situation in the eyes of both sets of her team-mates if she was forced to choose. Thankfully, her football manager Shane Roynane has taken it out of her hands by allowing her to focus on the senior camogie semi-final in which Tipperary are underdogs against Kilkenny, while the ladies footballers will be warm favourites to overcome Sligo in their semi-final, even without her.
However, being forced to make the choice isn't the issue. It is two female sporting organisations fighting for the same piece of the small pie. Saturday week should be left to Camogie to play their semi-finals, and even as that, it will already lose out on coverage because the senior hurling final will be what most people will be focusing on that weekend.
Tipperary and Kilkenny camogie teams will likely be well down on support for that game with fans either making their way to Dublin that evening, and opting only to go to one game on what will be an expensive weekend for those supporters.
The following weekend will be relatively quiet with no senior men's game to overshadow it as the All Ireland Football final isn't until 1st September so the Ladies Football would have had that weekend to themselves away, bar the U20 All Ireland Final between Tipperary and Cork.
The issue makes you wonder if in time that both associations come under the wing of the GAA, as has been the long term plan, whether they can co-exist under the one umbrella or remain adversaries as it would seem when it comes to fixture planning and self-promotion.
Hopefully some common sense will prevail in the coming days which will allow Orla to line out for both Tipperary teams in the upcoming All Ireland semi-finals.