Calls for calendar rethink after weather postponements
Waterford manager Páraic Fanning has said the fixtures pile-up caused by yesterday’s Division 1A and 1B postponements strengthens his belief that Croke Park bosses have to change the GAA calendar.
Earlier this year, Fanning criticised the intense run-off of the Fitzgibbon Cup, and the inclement weather that forced Waterford’s 1B clash with Galway in Walsh Park and two 1A games to be called off has underlined his opinion that a competition that takes eight weekends to complete shouldn’t be run off in nine weeks.
“It’s a tight enough schedule, with the quarter-finals having been down for next week,” said Fanning. “The GAA have to look at the overall calendar. You have to have a little bit of space and it was given last year with the bad weather and the postponements and we have it again this year. If there is any learning from that, it’s that there has to be some space in between games to allow for a possible postponement or two.”
The GAA’s Central Competitions Control Committee will this morning announce the re-fixture dates, which are expected to be next weekend and most of the knock-out games being put back by a week, with the Division 1 final taking place on March 30 or 31. Limerick v Laois is the only confirmed quarter-final.
Fanning argued that one break weekend in the Allianz Hurling League is not enough; football has two.
“You’re playing six weeks in a row if you go all the way to the Division 1 final and, if you got to the final, you probably wouldn’t complain too much about that. We’d be delighted if that was the case, but it’s asking a lot to do that, given the time of the year we’re playing and every so often we do get a spell of weather like this. It’s a pity for supporters, because we were looking forward to playing a home game in Walsh Park (yesterday).”
Referee for the Waterford-Galway game David Murphy made the decision to deem the Walsh Park pitch unplayable just after 1pm, around about the same time match official Seán Cleere was making the call in Páirc Uí Rinn to postpone the Cork-Tipperary Division 1A match. Cork GAA chairperson Tracey Kennedy apologised to supporters who had travelled to the game.
“Obviously, we’re very apologetic towards supporters from Cork and Tipp, we know that many of them travelled long distances.
“I believe there’s a precedent there from last year, with the snow and with the other games going off, that adjustments will have to be made generally to the fixture schedule,” said Kennedy, who pointed to the heavy rainfall in a short period of time which proved crucial to the decision.
“We had upwards of 30 millimetres of rain falling in a very short space of time. The pitch was inspected at 10.30 and it was playable at that stage. It was inspected again at around quarter to twelve and there was a bit of doubt at that stage. The referee was contacted then and he got here as soon as he could and he made a clear call. The pitch itself is stable, but the problem was the amount of surface water, which would be a danger to player safety, so it had to go off for that reason. The referee makes the call. If it had been unplayable last night it would have been called off then, but because it was playable this morning, it was left to him to make the call today.”
Tipp today go on a warm-weather training camp, permissible, per rule, as it takes place before April 1. Chairman John Devane agreed with the decision made by ref Cleere. “It might have been put back to three o’clock, but when the rain didn’t relent, it couldn’t happen.”
There was an estimated 3,000 people in Innovate Wexford Park when referee Alan Kelly called off the Wexford-Kilkenny game at 1.20pm, 20 minutes after he had initially given the green light.
Wexford boss Davy Fitzgerald, who took the opportunity to conduct a training session in nearby St Peter’s College with his players, said: “It’s the right decision, it’s about safety. I’ve looked at it and there’s surface water on the field and I just think there’s no point. It’s not about just rushing to get games played. That doesn’t make sense, so [it’s the] the right decision, 110%. I just think it would have been too dangerous.”
