Winter championship whets the appetite
O we are now a significant step closer to knowing what our summer/autumn/winter GAA championships are going to be like as Croke Park came out on Friday with their blueprint for the All-Ireland inter-county season followed by Cork GAA (this Monday) with their plans for the biggest and most complicated club scene in the country.
Sticking with hurling for now, headquarters announced the dates for all games in the Leinster and Munster Championships with the knock-out provincial draws also disclosed. There will be two back-door rounds for those out early in their provinces and the winners will join the losing provincial finalists to make up an All-Ireland final quarter final draw - with the provincial winners heading for the national semis.
The GAA also announced that there will be no club All Ireland series this season with county champions having to settle for local supremacy instead of hunting the top national honour.
The hurling league is as good as finished however there was some great news for the Cork footballers as they will get a chance to round off their superb league performances with promotion if they can secure a point from the final two rounds.
There are no easy draws in the Munster Senior Hurling Championship but if you are a Cork supporter surely you couldn’t be too disappointed with a semi-final draw against Waterford – keeping away from All-Ireland champions Tipperary and the 2018 title winners Limerick.
That said, inside the Cork camp nobody will be taking anything for granted as few believe that Waterford won’t have improved from the side that failed to show all their cards in recent years. In fact Waterford, on their day, could well be dark horses for the Munster crown this season, but on paper they still aren’t quite at the level of Tipp of Limerick.
Cork also avoided the short straw of playing on the opening weekend, which means that the Rebels will square up to the Déise on the weekend of October 31/November 1 with the provincial final scheduled for two weeks later on November 14/15.
The governing body have also given dates for the All Ireland finals with the hurling showpiece game due to take centre stage on Sunday, December 13th, six before the footballers head up Jones’ Road.
With such a short window to complete the season there will be no replays allowed with all championship games to be concluded on the day with extra time and shoot-outs employed if the sides can’t be separated after 70 minutes.
For Cork fans, that extra two week break (between end of October and mid-November), should go some way to easing the worries of both the supporters and the county’s senior stars who called a meeting with members of the County Board in recent weeks to express their concerns about the impending short preparation window for the county side ahead of this season’s championship.
So where to now? Well, as long as phase two of the pandemic doesn’t materialise in any significant way then it looks like we are on for a short, but quite possibly very sweet set of championships with clubs done and dusted before the big boys take the field.
Attendance figures are still one of the great unknowns with most fearing the bigger games will be played either behind closed doors or with significantly reduced numbers in the stands – social distancing guidelines at the time of play will dictate the level of participation from fans – both at club and inter-county.
Cork fans will be keen to get their teeth into another tilt at provincial and ultimately All-Ireland
honours, but as of now the venues for the upcoming games remains a mystery.
Cork and Waterford will be Kieran Kingston’s first crack at championship action since his return to the helm of the county side and, while he won’t be that troubled about the venue, he would surely like to have as much time to prepare as possible and as much help from the stands as he can get – a nice big open pitch with plenty capacity would be the order of the day.
Cork head into this season’s championship, like almost every other side, with a lot to prove however in Cork, the lack of an All-Ireland title at senior hurling since 2005 is a milestone that just keeps getting heavier for all concerned – especially for a manager that many on Leeside see as the latest incarnation of a messiah. Big shoes to fill to be sure.
If Cork are lucky enough to make it to one of the showpiece games in Croker this season then tickets are likely to be even more elusive than the famously illusive hens teeth as top brass at the higher levels of the game are floating kites that there may well be just 30-35,000 punters inside Croker on the biggest of days which will have serious implications for those searching for admission.
Despite all the obvious challenges that still remain for those running, supporting or playing GAA games this season the fact remains that as of now there are championships to look forward to and that has to be seen as a very good thing.
Come season’s end there will be provincial and national winners which is something that many of us thought would not happen so and maybe, just maybe, there can be a something to cheer in the Rebel County with Cork managing to end their drought and bring Liam MacCarthy back to the South Mall for some overdue Christmas cheer.