Ready for action
County teams learn their fates
AFTER the GAA published a revised fixture schedule for the 2020 intercounty season, Wicklow senior football manager, Davy Burke, has criticised the GAA’s decision not to run qualifiers for the All-Ireland series, while his hurling counterpart, Eamonn Scallan, described his side’s redrawn Christy Ring clash against Roscommon as being their final.
Last Friday, after over three months without action due to the COVID-19 lockdown restrictions, the GAA revealed their revised fixture schedule for the 2020 season. As previously hinted, the two remaining rounds of the national football league will be played on October 17 and 25, meaning that Wicklow – who were still in the hunt for promotion from division four when competition halted on March 12 – will play Antrim (home) and Wexford (away), as was originally planned.
As for the championship, the big news coming from Friday’s announcement was that there would be no backdoor into the All-Ireland. Instead, the four provincial champions will meet in the semi-finals of the Sam Maguire, with the qualifiers not taking place. It also means that the tier-two competition – the Tailteann Cup – has been postponed for 2020.
Therefore, Wicklow will travel to Wexford on either October 31 or November 1, with one of those two sides facing an immediate exit from the championship should they lose, a prospect in which Burke expressed disappointment, although he welcomed the prospect of his side completing their league fixtures.
‘The last couple of league games are a big help to us because, obviously, we were in the last tight round of games before lockdown, so we are delighted to have Antrim and Wexford up first before we play Wexford in the championship, then.
‘I was expecting a qualifier, to be honest with you. All players deserve at least two championship games – two goes at it – and I would be disappointed that the GAA haven’t given us the second game.
‘Don’t get me wrong, we are playing Wexford in the first round of championship, which – very much in my eyes – would be a 50-50 game., so we’d be hoping to get the second game. Still, I believe every player, regardless of preparation time deserve two goes at it, minimum.’
On the flip side, Eamonn Scallan and the Wicklow senior hurlers will have a minimum of two championship matches this winter, after the Christy Ring Cup was reformatted. Instead of a round-robin structure, the first round of games in the competition will act as quarter-finals, with Wicklow opening their account away to Roscommon on either October 24 or 25.
The winners of that game will advance to the semi-finals, while the losers will go to the relegation semi-finals. The losers of the relegation semis will then meet in a relegation final, the losers of which dropping down to the Nicky Rackard Cup for 2021.
Reacting to the news, Scallan said that the new arrangement will be something he and his players will put up with, while they will approach the Roscommon tie as being akin to a decider.
‘It is what it is,’ he said. ‘It is going to be the very same with all of the other counties as it will be for us. Granted, it is a change to what was originally planned, but circumstances being as they are, it is what it is and we will have to get on with it.
‘We have drawn Roscommon and that is the Christy Ring final, as far as Wicklow is concerned.’