Criticism as unforgiving fixtures hit dual players

CARNEW EMMETS manager Tom Darcy has expressed his disappointment at recent decisions by Wicklow’s CCC that have forced dual players to play major championship clashes in close proximity with the worst one being just an hour apart between games.

Annacurra’s Martin O’Brien was forced to pick himself up following his team’s defeat by Rathnew in the Senior football championship last Saturday, return to the dressing room, change his jersey, pick up his hurl and start preparing for the vital SHC quarter-final between Carnew Emmets and Éire Óg Greystones.

“I’m more disappointed than angry,” said Darcy. “Martin O’Brien is an inter-county hurler and he’s given an awful lot to Wicklow hurling and then he was forced to play two major championship matches within an hour of each other on the one day.

“We got on with it because of the type of man Martin is. We wanted it changed to the Sunday but the CCC wouldn’t change it because they wouldn’t allow Éire Óg to change it to the Friday night but as it happened they fixed Coolboy to play Junior A football on Friday night and three of the Coolboy team started for us in the hurling as well,” said the Carnew boss.

“It would be very interesting to see if Glenealy would have played a Senior quarter-final if the CCC had fixed Rathnew to play before their game with Leighton and Enan Glynn and Warren Kavanagh playing on both teams,” he added.

Darcy was also unhappy with the fixing of Senor football games this Saturday on the same day that the Wicklow under-21s are playing in an All-Ireland final in Thurles.

Mick Hagan of the CCC said that a decision taken at a County Board meeting earlier in the year to defer fixtures is now causing the problems, for dual clubs especially.

He said that the game couldn’t be re-fixed for Sunday as the CCC deemed it unfair to fix hurling games on the day of the All-Ireland final and he also warned that this problem was only going to get worse as the season progresses.