McCarthy’s swipe at London travel plans

NEWTOWNSHANDRUM captain John McCarthy is used to leaving the comfort of the scratcher at an hour when most of us are just turning over for the second sleep.

Farmer John, however, is more than a little perturbed at the demands being made on him to play in today's All-Ireland club hurling quarter-final in Ruislip, against Fr Murphy's of London.

"The team bus will be leaving Newtown at 4.45am in the morning, to make the check-in in Cork at 6.00 for the 7.30 flight to London," he explained yesterday afternoon. "As you can imagine, Patsy Morrissey and the lads aren't too impressed with Croke Park."

The travel arrangements for Newtownshandrum and An Ghaeltacht, the recently-crowned Munster champions in hurling and football, respectively, were all looked after from GAA headquarters, and the Newtown manager is frustrated at the tardy arrangements.

Croke Park didn't give the travel agent permission to book the flights until last Monday much too late. I tried to contact Croke Park during the week but could only talk to a girl in the front desk, couldn't find anyone to take responsibility for this. I don't think it was about money, because whether it was ourselves or Patrickswell (the team they beat in the last Sunday's final) it was going to be the same thing, one team would have had to travel and a block booking should surely have been made.

" It's just bad planning, and it's no wonder the GAA players have had to set up their own organisation. They're the guys playing this game, they're the ones expected to perform but once again they're the ones getting the worst treatment. It doesn't get much better on the return trip either. Bad enough that they have to get up in the middle of the night on the day of a game as important as this, but even on the way back, the arrangements made by Croke Park has us getting up very early again on Sunday morning.

Nothing we can do about it now, we have to put up with it. We'll try not to let it affect us, but if we lose the game. I can assure you it will become an issue."

Prior to last Sunday's game, a ground-breaker for Newtownshandrum who were winning their first Munster title, Patsy and his fellow-selectors, Ger Cunningham and Seanie Clifford, hadn't looked beyond Patrickswell. Since then, the work has been done on getting the low-down on Fr Murphy's.

"We know they're a Wexford-based side, we've had all the reports on their championship games this year, their team lists. No top name there that jumps out at you but a number of lads from strong clubs in Ireland, strong counties. Their centre-back, Michael Gordon, is one of those, played minor and U21 for Kilkenny. Believe me, we won't be taking anything for granted, we've prepared well during the week. But we could certainly have done without this mess with the travel arrangements."