Tommy Murphy Cup will continue, insists Kelly
Mr Kelly was responding to questions about the difficulties being encountered by some counties in fulfilling fixtures in the Cup, one of the new competitions he spearheaded after arriving in office two years ago.
Carlow withdrew from this year’s competition as did Tipperary last year. Wexford County Board are angered that their domestic campaign is in chaos due to a fixture for the Model men this weekend.
Mr. Kelly feels that counties attempting to fast-track their domestic championships could overcome problems by playing subsidiary inter-county games under lights.
“There’s no reason why these games can’t be played on Friday nights in future and let them they play their club championships at the weekend,’’ he commented.
Mr. Kelly said he remained to be convinced that the extra inter-county competitions were having a serious impact on club activity, saying: “I haven’t heard that much criticism. Maybe one or two counties haven’t legislated for it.’’
Acknowledging that Wexford were committed to the Tommy Murphy Cup, he pointed out that they had looked for a different date for their game with Fermanagh but that the GAC weren’t able to facilitate them. “But Wexford are a dual county and I can see their difficulties,’’ he added.
Taking an overall view, he said he suspected that counties which weren’t used to still being involved in inter-county competition at this time of the year hadn’t adapted to changing circumstances.
“The Tommy Murphy Cup is a knock-out competition for a start, so it’s going to impact on very few counties.
"But, maybe we would want to look at running it similar to the Christy Ring and Nicky Rackard Cups. We could allow only so many counties into it who are interested in playing. And they mightn’t play at all in the qualifiers. That’s a live option.
“Rather than say counties have to play, we’d say that only so many can take part. Maybe that might make a better job of it!”
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