Tomas O Sé claims the GAA’s refusal to alter club schedule will force him onto scrapheap

Tomas O Sé does not want his final game of Gaelic football to be on a mucky field in November.

But the Kerry legend, and now Nemo Rangers clubman, believes that he is left with no option to quit football forever after last week’s GAA Congress. The GAA’s annual talking shop rejected most proposals to try and change the playing calendar, and instead focused on adjusting playing rules. O Se’s most recent game at senior level was for Nemo Rangers in their Munster club football final loss to Clonmel Commercials last year. Writing in today’s Irish Independent, O Sé admits the lack of action  from Croke Park to help club players last week  means he’s close to retiring.

"I'm 37 going on 38, burning oil, with a big decision to make. To retire or go for one last run with the bulls. “Congress has pushed me towards the former. Because the biggest issue facing the GAA today is an ongoing fixtures crisis that last weekend's events in Carlow did little to allay. "If I jump, my last game of football will have been played on a filthy November day in Mallow, so bad you'd think twice about putting cattle out to graze."

O Sé has spoken previously how he never realised the difficulties facing club players until he stepped away from the Kerry senior football team in 2013. The wing-back cannot feels that club players should be given a chance to play football in better conditions that what the majority face in the search of local glory.

“Imagine if that game between Nemo against Clonmel Commercials had been played in August? Instead we endured the most awful conditions I can ever remember playing football in. Cold, wet and windy, fingers still numb coming off the field. A joke. "It brought home loud and clear to me the place of club players in the GAA hierarchy. They are bottom of the ladder. The lowest rung."