Tracey Kennedy: Páirc Uí Chaoimh pitch to be replaced
A new pitch will be laid at Páirc Uí Chaoimh following the completion of this year’s Munster senior hurling and football championships.
The Páirc Uí Chaoimh stadium board decided last night that a full pitch replacement would be carried out once the respective provincial championships were wrapped up in late June.
The cost of laying a new surface is factored into the €95.8m estimate for the overall stadium build. Although an industry expert recently claimed the bill to replace and maintain a new pitch at Páirc Uí Chaoimh could be as much as €2m, Cork county board chairperson Tracey Kennedy did not wish to speculate on the cost of a full pitch replacement.
Páirc Uí Chaoimh staged All-Ireland hurling quarter-final games in 2017 and 2018, but no such fixture will be played at the Cork venue this summer as the ground will be temporarily out of commission by the time the hurling championship reaches this juncture.
The Cork chairperson remains confident the pitch will be suitably ready for the visit of Tipperary in the opening round of the Munster SHC on Sunday, May 12.
“The stadium board, first of all, decided to initiate remedial works so that the pitch is in the best possible condition it can be for May 12 and the championship. A full pitch replacement will take place after the conclusion of the Munster senior hurling and football championships,” Kennedy told the Irish Examiner last night.
This is absolutely the right decision, the only decision really. The next step is to source the best possible contractors to carry out this job.
Kennedy said Páirc Uí Chaoimh could be in a position to host the Cork county finals in October, but that the priority was to have the pitch right for the 2020 season.
“We can’t say for definite at this stage whether or not it will be available for our county finals. It depends on how long the work takes and so on.
“If it is ready, fine, we will play the county finals at Páirc Uí Chaoimh. If it is not ready, we will play them at Páirc Uí Rinn, which is an excellent venue and has hosted numerous county senior finals. The priority is to have the pitch in perfect condition for 2020.”
The Páirc Uí Chaoimh pitch was labelled “unacceptable” by the Cork county board following a league doubleheader on Sunday, February 3 when the playing surface cut up badly. All remaining Cork hurling and football league fixtures have been moved down the road to Páirc Uí Rinn.
Cork GAA CEO Kevin O’Donovan, in a recent RTÉ interview, said there were a number of factors as to why the current sod was in such a poor state.
“There are issues with the stadium in terms of, maybe, the location of the pitch, maybe, the overarching nature of the main stand, the decisions made during the project to allow machinery to travel over a certain area of the pitch, but we need to grasp all those issues now and deal with it. I believe full [pitch] replacement is the way to go with a hybrid pitch,” O’Donovan insisted.
“The pitch has to become an issue which leaves the table by January of next year.”
