RESTARTING SHOULD NOT BE DONE ON NATIONWIDE BASIS: NEIL

NEIL MCMANUS believes coronavirus-free counties should be allowed to restart club action sooner rather than later.

With the COVID-19 outbreak more concentrated in certain areas, Mcmanus (above) doesn’t believe that a one-size-fits-all approach should be taken when assessing whether games can resume at some point.

He explains: “I don’t know what’s going to happen at county level because obviously there’s so many different areas involved but I’d hope that if, say, Co Limerick or Co Cork are essentially COVIDFREE in a couple of months or the numbers are very low, the testing has been carried out, then hopefully the club championship will be able to go ahead.

“I don’t see why it shouldn’t.

“If a game was to be held in two months’ time, people would go with people from their household and they’d stay beside the people from their household.

“If you’re going to big intercounty Championship games, that space isn’t really available so it is hard to see county hurling going ahead with the crowds.

“There can be anywhere between 7,000 and 10,000 at a county final in Antrim so I don’t know how that would be done on the day. Ten thousand wasn’t a big crowd in Casement Park but it’s closed.

“If you’re going to Ballycastle, Loughgiel, Dunloy or Cushendall, that’s a massive crowd.”

Nobody realistically expects a full-to-the-brim Croke Park to host All-ireland finals this year, but the Ruairi Og man is optimistic that if club games get the green light, the Joe

Mcdonagh Cup, in which Antrim compete, could be played too.

There is quite the geographical disparity between the competing counties, however, with the Saffrons joined by Kerry, Westmeath, Meath and Carlow in the second tier competition.

“If there’s still a heavy COVID-19 problem in some of the Joe Mcdonagh Cup counties then it can’t go ahead, I would say.

“If we’re getting to a stage where the cases are low, then I think the Joe Mcdonagh could go ahead. I don’t see why it couldn’t. And then we’ll see down the line, because things are developing.”