Joe Canning feels that the GAA has created far too much competition for itself with the new split season model.
The ex-Galway star is not averse to the year being divided down the middle between inter-county and club activity but feels that the club season should lead the way for a number of reasons.
Among them is the fact that the inter-county Championships starting in April means that they are jostling for people’s attention at a time when other codes’ seasons are coming to a climax.
“You look at the last day of the Munster Championship (round-robin), you had the two games on at four o'clock and you had Liverpool and Man City playing,” said Canning.
“They were competing with Heineken Cup matches, the Champions League final, all these games you were competing with and trying to get people to go to GAA matches. Like, it’s crazy.
“You had your shop window in September before, where there was very little competition and the only thing that seemed to happen was Electric Picnic.
"I think for marketing and getting kids involved, it's very hard if you are competing with those other big professional sports. That would be the main reason for me to, get people going to the games, get people showing the games.
“How many people stayed at home to watch Liverpool or Man City win the league and didn't go to the Munster Championship matches? Realistically, there's a good few.
“I was working in the pub and we had four different screens on. That's my biggest thing, competing with other sports.”
With the majority of counties finished for the year in early June, Canning fears that the clubs will still lose out due to an exodus of players overseas for the summer.
“I think you are seeing it now in the last few days especially; I’m seeing football lads going over to America now.
“So will football club teams want to play without their players and that Championships? Probably not, so I think you are running into all sorts of different things coming down the line in the next couple of weeks.
“I know Paul Mannion has gone to Boston, are Kilmacud going to start the club championship in July or August when he might be still in Boston? I don’t think so.
“There's obviously other guys gone out as well to different clubs, so that’s another conundrum for clubs and counties to sort out in the next couple of weeks.”
The 33-year-old also believes that the club season going second makes it more difficult for players to break into a county set-up.
“If you are a club player now and you are going well in your championship, you could bring that momentum into your county setup, whereas with the club you have to almost stop playing for a couple of months towards the end of the year in your November/December months and you could kind of lose form.
“So it’s very hard for guys to kind of break into the inter-county team now, so I’d be more for flipping the club to the start of the year and the inter-county to the second half of the year.”
Elsewhere, Canning anticipates a strong response from his former Galway teammates as they put their season on the line against Cork in the All-Ireland quarter-final in Thurles tomorrow.
Galway suffered a five-point loss to Kilkenny in the Leinster final earlier this month having gone through the round robin phase unbeaten.
“It was a funny day,” Canning noted. “They just didn't seem to get going at all. They kind of needed a goal early on. They did create a few goal chances and if they got one of them, who knows, it could have been a completely different story.
“As I've said before, Kilkenny are difficult to beat, twice in the space of a couple of weeks let alone in the same year. It just didn't seem to click.
“From my own experience, you can overthink things and analyse things and then maybe think too much about it. Maybe it's just one of those days. Unfortunately it obviously happened in a Leinster final.”
He added: “I think there will be a kick from the Leinster final and I think in the last number of Championship matches, they have won maybe four of the last five meetings or something like that [against Cork].
“If that kind of history goes in our way, you never know but if you let Cork hurl, they’ll hurt you.
“If you can physically dominate them around the middle of the field then you have a good chance of winning the game.”
