Kerry opposed to a black card in hurling and ending All-Ireland JFC

Delegation yet to decide which Presidential candidate to support

KERRY will oppose motions to GAA Congress this weekend that propose the introduction of a black card and sin-bin for hurling, the scrapping of the All-Ireland Junior Football Championship, and increasing all adult club games to a duration of 70 minutes playing time.

Kerry’s delegation to Croke Park on Saturday are also expected to vote against proposals that will see schools and colleges competitions completed by early February, the Sigerson Cup and Fitzgibbon Cups to be completed by early February, and the Under-20 football championship to be completed by early April.

With regard to the election of the next President of the GAA, Kerry’s delegation to Congress have yet to agree on which of the five candidates they will support, with a consensus expected to be arrived at in the next couple of days and ahead of Saturday’s annual Congress. The five candidates seeking to succeed John Horan are Jerry O’Sullivan (Cork), Mick Rock (Roscommon), Jarlath Burns (Armagh), Jim Bolger (Carlow) and Larry McCarthy (New York).

Kerry’s Central Council delegate John Joe Carroll ( pictured)

- one of a delegation of eight who will travel from Kerry at the weekend - confirmed to The Kerryman that while the county will carry a mandate from the clubs on a certain number of the 63 motions on the agenda, in other cases they will adopt a “wait and see” approach and listen to the arguments for and against the motions before deciding what way to vote.

Motion 19 proposes moving the neutral game of the Super 8 All-Ireland quarter-finals out of Croke Park to a ‘neutral venue’, which Mr Carroll said Kerry, in line with most other counties, would be broadly in favour of supporting.

However, he did say that it is his understanding that Croke Park could still be counted as a neutral venue for that round of

Super 8 matches, so support for the motion wouldn’t necessarily mean that Kerry, or other counties, couldn’t play that Super 8 game in Croke Park.

On the proposal to do away with the All-Ireland Junior Football Championship, Mr Carroll said Kerry would be opposing that motion. “Obviously only a small number of counties have been taking part in the Junior

Championship in recent years so the competition is losing a small bit of its value in that regard. Although from Kerry’s point of view I think Kerry has always used the competition well, trying to develop players and so on, and it has been a great benefit to down the years. It’s just a pity that other counties haven’t done the same but we are where we are. It will probably be difficult to hold on to it I’d say,” Mr Carroll said.

Mr Carroll said there are three motions “tied in with each other” namely proposal to keep the Under-20 Football Championship in February and March, as well as completing the Second-Level and Third-Level competitions by mid-February.

“Kerry’s position is that we will be opposing all those three motions. We feel the Under-20 should continue in June July as it did for a few years. If that did happen it would leave a bit more space for the Sigerson and secondary school competitions. What’s proposed is probably squeezing them a bit tight to be fair to those competitions,” Mr Carroll said.

On the motion to introduce a black card and a sin-bin, Mr Carroll said the traditional hurling counties are almost all opposed to its introduction so Kerry will probably vote along those lines, but he added that they will probably support a motion that proposes to reward a converted sideline cut in hurling with two points on the scoreboard.

Kerry will also vote to keep their minor grade at under-18 and maintain their Under-21 championships instead of moving to Under-20.