Clubs will have games without county stars

It’s expected that clubs will still have to play up to two league games without their county players this season, despite the introduction of a more streamlined national fixture plan.

The inter-county season started earlier and will end in late August with the All-Ireland finals brought forward from their traditional September slots, but in real terms the changes will have very little effect on Louth’s club fixture plan.

At last week’s adjourned Convention, St Fechins tabled a motion proposing that county panellists be available to clubs for ALL league matches this season.

However, the complexities of such a scenario were outlined by CCC Secretary Declan Byrne.

He insisted that if the CCC were to remove the so-called ‘star matches’, clubs would end up playing league football in Ðecember.

It’s planned to start the new club season with the subsidiary competitions on the weekend of February 25th, while the main leagues will be starting in late March/early April.

With no inter-county action in April, it’s hoped to play five league matches that month, but there are still likely to be star matches in May and/or June during Louth’s Leinster and All-Ireland Qualifier campaigns.