GAA must hold firm on fixtures

LOUTH will be hoping to give Longford a fright as a revised Leinster Championship gets underway on Halloween weekend.

The Reds may even face the midlanders on Halloween night with the fixture now slated for October 31st or November 1st on the Leinster GAA website.

While no venue has been allocated as yet, there is a possibility games will be scheduled for Croke Park, depending on social distancing guidelines at the time.

The clash was originally scheduled for Cusack Park in Mullingar. Leinster Council will not be confirming full details until August.

The winners will face Laois in the quarter-finals a week later.

Meanwhile, Louth will almost certainly now be plying their trade in Division 4 in 2021, following the decision to play the final two rounds of the Allianz Leagues on the weekends of 18 and 25 October.

Wayne Kierans’ side aren’t mathematically relegated just yet, but it would take a miracle to avoid the drop.

Kierans will now be more interested in using the games as prep for the Longford clash.

The Reds first game back is an away clash with Cork in Pairc Ui Chaoimh, followed by a home date with neighbours Down seven days later.

Both Cork and Down are vying for promotion and Cork could even clinch a return to Division 2 against Louth.

Louth need to beat Cork and hope that Tipperary and Leitrim draw the same weekend to even extend their survival mission into the final weekend.

ALL across the country GAA clubs were allowed resume training this week following three and a half months on the sidelines due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Club fixtures will now begin on July 21st with the completion of the concluding stages of the Paddy Sheelan Cup and Kevin Mullen Shield.

The smaller condensed league format commences at the beginning of August with the championship following two weeks later.

This is an intensive period of activity for clubs and their players and will require an enormous effort from all involved to ensure the schedule is run off smoothly and safely.

GAA authorities have said that intercounty players will not return to county training until September 14th prior to the start of the revised intercounty fixtures programme which begins with the resumption on the National Leagues on October 17th.

Louth, who are destined for relegation to the bottom tier of the competition, return with an away fixtures against Cork at the newly refurbished Pairc Ui Chaoimh.

The announcement of two clearly defined separate seasons seemed pretty straightforward at the outset and to ensure compliance, the Association has also announced that insurance for inter-county training sessions would not be covered under the players injury scheme until September 14th.

However, the waters have become a little muddied in recent days with the Gaelic Players Association and several former inter-county stars calling for an earlier reinstatement of the scheme outside the approved window.

GAA President John Horan and Director General Tom Ryan have said there are no current plans to impose penalties on counties in breach of the directive. This absence of any form of sanction is almost like a green light for county managers to flout the rules.

The GAA must hold firm and remain steadfast of this issue. Having being on both sides of the fence in the not too distant past, it’s my opinion that far too much ground has been acceded to the GPA in recent times, much of which is to the detriment of the club and club players.

A defined inter-county season that doesn’t interfere with a similarly defined club season is what is needed going forward. While the directive has been issued by officials in Croke Park, the individual County Boards have a major role to play in its implementation.

As expected a straight knockout competition has been restored to the All Ireland Football Championship. There will be no qualifiers or Super-8s in 2020. The Munster champions will play the Connacht champions in one semi-final with the Ulster champions facing the Leinster champions in the other last four game.

The winners will contest the All-Ireland final, which takes place a week before Christmas on Saturday December 19th.

It will be a GAA winter like never before with the opening provincial championships commencing on October 31st when the clocks will have already gone back the hour to winter-time.

Louth will play Longford in the opening round of the Leinster SFC with the winners playing Laois in the quarter-finals.

Six in a row chasing Dublin or Westmeath await in the semis. With so little room for manoeuvre between fixtures, there is a ruthless imperative to conclude rounds weekend by weekend. This means that the prospect (unthinkable in normal circumstances) of All-Irelands being decided by penalty shoot-outs is now very much part of the plan.

Not since the year Santa brought me my fist bicycle have I been looking forward to a December as much.