Night games under spotlight

IRONIC that the dawn of a new era is at night. Tomorrow night's Allianz League tie between Cork and Kerry at Páirc Uí Rinn has several appealing sub-plots, but for many of the 10,000 patrons expected to attend, watching a competitive GAA game under floodlights is the most appealing of all.

Given the speed at which the GAA embraces change, the notion of Monday Night Football is some way off, but already there is an encouraging consensus on the benefits of evening throw-ins.

"I think you will a lot more of this in the future," says Sean Walsh, chairman of the Kerry County Board that installed lights in Austin Stacks ground two years ago. "Sunday has become more of a family day, people are less inclined to go to the matches. The

interest that has built up around Saturday's game shows the people are excited."

The advantages of increased floodlighting are plain to see in these fixture-congested times, but the GAA has never been an organisation to accept even the most advantageous of changes. Still, a future under lights has gained widespread support across the GAA spectrum and the Strategic Review projected that all senior clubs should have lights within 10 years.

Longford chairman Martin Skelley watched his county beat Meath in a floodlit O'Byrne Cup game recently and has experienced first-hand how floodlights can solve problems.

"That game was a great success," Skelly says. "It's the only way forward. The way the fixture list has become congested, if counties didn't have the facility of floodlit games, there would be a lot of championships not finished in the calendar year.

"Around 2,000 people turned up in Simonstown that night, on a Tuesday night for an O'Byrne Cup game. It does work, and there is a special atmosphere when a game is played under lights."

While Skelley says the most positive aspect of the development is making life easier for players, it would be wrong to consider floodlights to be a catch-all solution. Headaches remain.

Floodlit games will be played, largely, in winter, so the surface must be taken into account.

At present, only three county venues are equipped with lights Tralee, Páirc Uí Rinn and Castleblaney. Many officials have emphasised the need for lighted pitches to be playable. Joe O'Shaughnessy heads the Leinster council's sub-committee dealing with this issue. He chaired a meeting before Christmas, which was attended by officials from all 12 counties in the province.

Parnell Park are now seriously considering installing lights and others may follow suit. O'Shaughnessy believes it is important for county boards to decide on the power of their lighting system.

"They say 600 lux (light level on the pitch) is good enough for television, I think Páirc Uí Rinn is around that level. There are a lot of things for a club or county board to consider

before they put up the lights will they be simply for training purposes or match purposes, will they be used for both football and hurling?"

Of course, cost is a consideration. The measurement of the equipment being used tomorrow hammers that home. The system consists of four 36M poles each weighing 12 tons each. Each pole has 42 1500 watt lamps giving a total of 168 lamps, which use 250kW of electricity/hour.

And then, there is the problem of planning permission. With houses around Páirc Uí Rinn, this was a concern in Cork. But as John Moloney of Musco Lighting explains, planning is part of the installation process, "When we go through the planning process, we submit the design, so we can show that the spill-light won't affect the surrounding housing."

Micheal Delaney, Leinster council secretary, thinks it will be a while before floodlit hurling games become commonplace but it is certain to become regular in football.

"It is something that is going to be more and more commonplace, you will see it happening in the upcoming national league, with competitions like the O'Byrne Cup and certainly, in the AIB club championship. If floodlights are utilised more in that competition, we won't have championships running into December."

"At the moment, there are less than 10 pitches in the province that would have adequate floodlights to hold important championship games but that will change," Delaney said. "It has to. It will lessen fixture congestion. Everything we should do in this association should be towards making life easier and being fairer on players.

"And if we retain that attitude, I see no alternative than floodlit games becoming the norm."

And the players seem to agree. Padraic Davis, who starred in Longford's recent floodlit victory over Meath, believes Saturday's game will not seem so strange in a few years time.

"I found the game good, there was no difference really," Davis said. " Obviously, if you were given the choice you would pick daylights. But, there's no discernible difference.

"The way the fixtures have crammed up I don't see any other way but the GAA have to going with lights. They seem to be creating more competitions rather than getting rid of some of them, like they should. So we are going to see more floodlit games."

The players seem to want it. And as the association is slowly, but surely, accepting, the players are the people to listen to.