Cork’s All-Ireland winning camogie star, Laura Treacy, has revealed the prospect of a player strike if there is no resolution to the ongoing fixture clashes affecting the county’s dual players.
Should both the Cork camogie and Cork football sides progress in their respective All-Ireland championships, it is highly probable that they will end up playing on the same day, no fewer than three times.
Treacy is the Women’s Gaelic Players Association (WGPA) representative within the squad and insists striking is the last resort but action will be taken if needs be. The fixture clash effects the likes of dual players including Hannah Looney, Fiona Keating, Meabh Cahalane, Ciara McCarthy and Libby Coppinger.
Speaking at the launch of the 2020 Liberty Insurance All-Ireland Camogie Championships, the 2017 All-Star defender said, “I don’t even know is it going to have to go down the route that like a total strike of Cork camogie and Cork ladies football have to come into the play. Does it actually have to be something so dramatic like that for change to happen? I would hope not.
“It shouldn’t be a case that something like that would have to happen,” she added. "But if it is something that has to happen, it’s something I personally would be willing to do.
“A lot of the girls involved in the Cork senior camogie team, I know I can speak on behalf of them and say they’d be happy to do something like that. Because it’s something that is happening and not just in Cork.
"It’s happening in different counties as well, but it just seems to be something that is happening so frequently.
“It seems to be something that is happening every year. If it is a case that something dramatic has to be done, that we just have to sit out for the rest of the year and that we’re not going to be playing on those fixture clashes, then I wouldn’t rule it out.”
On Saturday, November 7, Cork's ladies football and camogie teams are scheduled to play All-Ireland championship group games. The Galway camogie team have expressed their willingness to push their group encounter back 24 hours so that it does not collide with the other game.
The same issue however would arise in the knockout stages of both competitions should both sides progress. The All-Ireland Camogie quarter-final and Cork’s All-Ireland Ladies Football Championship group fixture against Cavan is scheduled for the same day - November 14. The All-Ireland semi-finals in both codes are pencilled in for the weekend of November 28/29.
“If we qualified for a quarter-final, which is on November 14, the Cork footballers are down as another clash on that day. They are playing Cavan. If the camogie and the footballers are successful, we both will find ourselves in a semi-final on the same day [November 28].
“They feel the only option that is fair is that, if both clashes go ahead and there’s no resolution to be switching from a Saturday to a Sunday or vice versa, they will have to sit out those fixture clashes.
“We are in the year 2020 and we are trying to promote women in sport. It seems to be the same complaints every year, which never ever helps the media to do with women in sport. I do know Galway were very good to us and they are saying they are happy to play us on the Sunday, which is great.
“It comes down to communication. What would be unbelievable would be if all associations became one. Everyone would then be singing off the same hymn sheet. I don’t see that happening in 2021.
“If everybody could just sit around a table and talk through the fixtures together as a collective unit and highlighted on what weekend and what day they are planning on playing that game, and vice versa. It comes down to talking to each other, to be honest.”
