Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
GAA crowd pleasers for year: O’hara
Italy v
SLIGO great Eamonn O’hara reckons the GAA will push inter-county activity to later in the year – in the hope of some decent gate receipts.
GAA President John Horan said at the weekend that they’ll stick with the plan of inter-county games first, when Covid restrictions ease. But there’s a chance of crowds attending matches later in the year and the GAA needs fresh income after announcing a €34.1m deficit for 2020.
O’hara (inset) told Midwest Radio’s Sunday Sports Show: “There’s a reason why they’re actually sharing that (losses) and there’s a reason why there’s talk about it.
“For me, I see it that maybe it’s now being considered that the senior inter-county will actually come second this year, I think club may come first with the hope that people will be maybe able to attend games later on in the year around
September or October time, thus generating revenue for the GAA.
“Because to go again and to take that hit again for another year, it’s going to set back the GAA an awful lot. So I think club may come first.”
Ireland Saturday, 2.15pm
ANDY FARRELL is keeping faith with the same 36-man squad for the visit to Rome on Saturday.
The players were allowed to return home in the wake of last week’s Aviva Stadium loss to France, the second championship defeat in a row for Ireland, before most returned to camp on Thursday. A dozen were released to get game time with the provinces in the PRO14 over the weekend and all 12 will return to Carton House this morning ahead of the Stadio Olimpico encounter.
Ross Byrne playing at centre instead of out-half Ryan Baird and man of the match Jack Conan lined out in Leinster’s victory at the Dragons on Friday night.
Craig Casey, Chris Farrell, Shane Daly and Andrew Conway – seeing action for the first time since mid-december – started in Munster’s impressive win away to Edinburgh, while Bundee Aki also saw much-needed action in Connacht’s win over Cardiff Blues, along with Ultan Dillane and Dave Heffernan.
Tom O’toole and Stuart Mccloskey started in Ulster’s win over Glasgow Warriors in Scotstoun.
“There were no significant injury concerns for the players who featured for their provinces in the PRO14 over the weekend and all 12 are fit to return to national camp,” confirmed the IRFU in a statement yesterday.
Ireland head coach Andy Farrell had expressed confidence last week that his skipper Johnny Sexton and pack leader James Ryan would be fit to face Italy after missing out on the France game having not completed their return to play protocols.
Cian Healy, Billy Burns and Iain Henderson, who skippered Ireland against Les Bleus, went through those protocols last week.
Harry Byrne – who started for Leinster at No.10 in Wales – John Cooney and Eric O’sullivan provided emergency specialist cover for the France game but have not been included in the squad for the Italy game.
Farrell has pledged to play his strongest side as Ireland chase a first win in this year’s championship.