Louth GAA opts against bringing games forward
LOUTH GAA is not planning to revise its fixture plan for the remainder of 2020 in the wake of a new return-to-play timeline issued by Croke Park.
Acting on the Government’s decision to bring phase five of the national re-opening roadmap forward, the GAA has allowed county boards to start running club fixtures from July 17th.
However, Louth GAA chiefs will only use the extra weekends for Division 4, 5 and 6 football, as the fixture plan released last week only allowed for three games in these grades.
There may have been a temptation to bring forward two rounds of the main leagues (Divisions 1, 2 and 3) to the weekends of 19 and 26 July, but it’s understood the CCC does not want to start tinkering with the plan it issued last week, while the extra games for junior/second teams is seen as an added bonus.
The new roadmap means clubs can re-open their pitches for adult training from this Wednesday, 24 June and for juvenile training from Saturday, 27 June.
However, this training must be non-contact and with only 15 players in certain designated areas of the field at one time.
Full contact training and challenge games for adult teams can resume from June 29th, subject to government restrictions specifying a maximum of 200 people in club grounds at any one time.
The new roadmap will provide Louth clubs with four full weekends prior to the start of the main leagues on 2 August.
With teams bound to seek out challenge games during this time, it will be argued that the County Board should just stage League games from 17 July instead, however the decision to provide more football for so-called ‘reserve’ team players is laudable.
AS things stand all ‘first’ teams are guaranteed a minimum of eight games between 2 August and 25 October.
Teams that make it to their league finals will have an additional game on the weekend of 1 November, while teams that make it to the semi-finals and finals of the three Championship grades will also play more games. Teams that reach both their league and championship finals could play up to 11 games.
Under the new fixture plan an U20 competition will commence on the week ending 8 November.
To facilitate a reduced number of games, Divisions 1 and 2 of the main leagues have been split into two groups of six, while Division 3A and 3B will commence as planned with six teams in 3A and eight teams in 3B.
The season will recommence with two rounds of the main leagues on Sunday 2 August and Sunday 9 August with the Championship kicking off on the weekend of 16 August.
Fixtures for the opening round of the Championships have been revealed, with the stand-out tie in the senior grade being the meeting of reigning champions Newtown Blues and promoted Intermediate winners Mattock Rangers.
The remaining two rounds of group games will be held on the last two weekends of August and then it’s straight into the knockout stages, with all quarter and semi-finals slated to finish on the day to avoid the headache of arranging replays.
Apart from the round of group games where they are idle, junior and intermediate clubs will play on consecutive weekends right through to their respective finals.
The senior finalists will get an additional week’s break between their semi-finals and the football showpiece on September 27th.
The Senior Hurling Championship will be held on Thursday nights in tandem with football, with the final to be played prior to the IFC decider on September 20th.
The Junior football final is due to take place a day earlier on Saturday September 19th.
The main leagues then resume, with round three marked down for Sunday October 4th and rounds four and five on October 11th and 25th respectively.