Cork legend Gemma O’Connor has hit out at the Camogie Association for the scheduling of its All Star tour.
The 2021 and ‘22 All Star teams are scheduled to jet out to Canada on May 19, returning six days later and only a week before the Championship gets underway.
Cork are due to have seven representatives on the trip but their contingent has pulled out due to the proximity to the Championship, saying that they couldn’t stand over missing such a critical period of training in the run up to it.
The Camogie Association said that the split season had made it difficult to find a suitable spot in the calendar but, as yet, has not rescheduled the tour.
O’Connor, who retired from inter-county camogie two years ago, said: “There can be no excuses for management in terms of us as sport on a national level, the governing body of the Camogie Association that talks about progressing our sport, we have to stop getting it into the headlines for the wrong reasons.
“It is all about player welfare and player benefit and equality in the game. You wouldn’t see a senior hurler or a senior footballer being put into this position with their respective counties.
“I don’t know how they have managed to come up with this idea and think it is good. It is really bad for the game, it is really bad from the management point of view, in terms of how the Camogie Association is organising the whole camogie Championship.
“It looks really poor, to be honest, and I know Cork have made a decision to say that they are going to step away from it in protest.
“You couldn’t expect any group of players to go away for a week and not be with their teams so close to the championship, it does not reflect very well on the teams or on the championship.
“It’s a bad call from the Camogie Association and I don’t know what they are going to do to rectify it.”
Former President of Ireland Mary McAleese is currently chairing the integration process between the CA, LGFA and GAA and O’Connor says that her own sport’s governing body “can’t survive by itself”.
“I think there seems to be a lot of lip service paid towards it. It's been said and it's been mentioned but there seems to be no real action or progression on it.
“The camogie badly needs it, the players badly need it and it's something that I'm in favour of.
“I think the Camogie Association itself can't survive by itself and I think players feel the effects of that.
“You need the biggest, strongest governing body behind it and that's the GAA, that's a fact. You see it with the male players, they get the benefits - they get the results.
“Women in sport need an extra bit of help, that's just a fact of life so why not take it.”
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