GAA now see Under-19 grade as the more appropriate start to inter-county career

The GAA believes that a move to establish Under-19 as the new minor grade at inter-county level and keep U17 games as strictly developmental will address burnout and help with the retention of young players.

Both issues were raised in 2007 by a GAA medical group, chaired by Dr Pat O'Neill.

And once again the topic of age grades and development of young players will be one of the main topics of consideration at congress in Bekan, Co Mayo, on Saturday.

Senior GAA officials believe that this proposed change is a crucial part of their new Gaelic Games Player Pathway and tackles the balance between young players at club and county and the threat of overuse injuries.

They insist that the move will help them achieve their goal of life-long participation in Gaelic games and that U19 is a more appropriate age to start at inter-county level than U17.

For the past number of years there have been several debates on what the GAA's underage club and inter-county structure should look like.

The initial call for change from U18 to U17 came for several reasons, including anecdotal and empirical evidence highlighting incidence of overuse injuries and player burnout in developing players, clashes with state exams and over-burdening of young players at that age due to fixture overlap between underage and adult competitions. Evidence of player drop-off peaking between ages of 15 and 17 years was a key factor too.

The switch from U21 to U20 has caused plenty of debate too with some in the association looking for a return to the traditional U18 and U21 model.

On the other hand, there have been calls for U17 to be scrapped and for an U23 grade to be established to keep developing players in contention for longer.

In his opening address at Congress 2020,