Sunday, September 28, 2008

Passmore clarifies domestic availability of internationals

High Performance Director, Dave Passmore has clarified the situation regarding how many games international players can take part in on the domestic season this week.


The restrictions have been introduced to prevent over-playing with the hope of keeping the countries top players in prime condition for the national team.

For the 2008/09 season, players could potentially play 84 matches this season amid IHL, ISC, Europe, domestic league and cup games.

With the European Championships, World Cup qualifiers and a potential Champions Challenge combined with warm-up matches, there is a potential for 35 international fixtures in the next 14 months.

With this in mind, senior panel athletes will be permitted – in addition to interprovincial tournaments – to play all the IHL and ISC matches as well as European competition both indoor and outdoor.

In addition, the men can play 14 domestic league and cup fixtures in total while the ladies can play ten games. Further to this, when teams have been knocked out of the ISC the players can play for their clubs on the corresponding ISC dates.

Athletes not playing for an AIL club are permitted to play club matches on the corresponding AIL dates.


National Coaches have the discretion to allow players to compete beyond this number of games if they have not been selected for specific camps/national matches, or to help with rehabilitation from injury.


Seventeen players were named on the men's side who will be covered by these stipulations. They are: Stephen Butler, Mitch Darling, Ronan Gormley, David Harte, Tim Lewis, Graham Shaw, Iain Walker, Mark Black, Karl Burns, David Hobbs, John Jermyn, Keith Black, Timmy Cockram, Mark Gleghorne, Eugene Magee, Geoff McCabe and Michael Watt

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well at least thats crystal clear now!

Anonymous said...

How many players are there in the senior panel that can only play the 14 and who are they?

Anonymous said...

Who is Keith Black?

Anonymous said...

I have to personally say that this is a bit of a joke. This penalises clubs who develop players up to international standard as they can only use them selectively. This is probably ok for the Ulster clubs as their league is smaller so they can effectively play all their league matches.

Anonymous said...

and what about the likes of Harte, sothern,blakeney,mconnell etc??surely this gives Pembroke and the likes an unfair advantage having these players at their disposal?!

Anonymous said...

pretty sure only sothern and harte are pembroke, with blakeney and mcconnell being rovers.

Anonymous said...

This is an absolute disgrace. What are these players resting for? Hardly top tier international hockey. Also if they play what will happen them? Will the new coach drop them.....not likely. However, Craig Fulton is most likely applying this rule as care-taker coach. Once again a complete conflict of interest for Pembroke Wanderers, who are paying their coach not to get the best team on the pitch.

Anonymous said...

If you look at the announced squad. It's 3 Pembroke, 2 Glenanne and 1 Rovers & YMCA.

Anonymous said...

Is Sothern not fully inovled now with the senior panel??

Anonymous said...

he is, but only the main squad is being rested from matches, the irish squad is made up of about 23 players im pretty sure.