Brennan admits fears of fixture pile-up
Only six of the scheduled 17 NHL matches were played over the weekend because of the frost, ice and snow.
Central Competitions Control Committee (CCCC) chairman Jimmy Dunne had said only last week that “any major disruption in our programme could have serious repercussions”.
“It is a concern, but there was nothing that could have been done with the conditions we had over the weekend,” said Brennan. “Games just couldn’t be played. I was on the road at home (Sunday) morning and I saw the Kilkenny bus going to Galway. I just said at the time ‘I wonder how far they will get’.
There is just nothing you can do about it. It is very tight now and we were also hoping to pencil in a (hurling) inter-provincial semi-final before they go to Abu Dhabi, which is almost confirmed. It is not what we would have wanted but we have floodlit facilities now which may facilitate games if we need to.”
He continued: “I can imagine what they can probably do — and I am only speculating on this now — is they can play the inter-provincial midweek under lights so we can have the two finalists ready to go to Abu Dhabi.
“We could use the spare weekend in the calendar to play off the postponed games. That is possibly a way out of it but I will leave all that to the wise heads in the CCCC. They are well used to dealing with these situations.”
The Saturday and Sunday programme is one of the busiest the CCCC had to plan for, with a full round of games in both hurling and football in addition to the four finals of the AIB All-Ireland junior and intermediate finals in the two codes.
All four deciders are scheduled for Croke Park — two Saturday and two on Sunday, while the league programme features the NHL clash between Tipperary and Cork in Semple Stadium on Saturday. This marks the official turn-on of the new floodlighting system there. On Sunday, the big attraction is the repeat of the All-Ireland football final as Tyrone and Kerry meet in Omagh.
In the meantime, Dunne’s committee will meet in Croke Park this morning to agree dates on the hurling re-fixtures, consoled by the fact that the three football games in Division Four which they had fixed for Saturday did go ahead.
“We haven’t a lot of leeway to fix those hurling games. It’s going to be tough because of the inter-provincial hurling semi-finals (yet to be fixed).’’
The CCCC must also agree dates for the inter-provincial football semi-finals, but there isn’t the same pressure about these.
In terms of options for re-fixing the NHL games, they have scope to plan them for Saturday, February 21. The following day the semi-finals of the club hurling championship are down for decision.
Ballyhale Shamrocks will be meeting Portumna in Thurles and Kilkenny chairman Paul Kinsella yesterday expressed the view that, in different circumstances, it would make an “ideal double-header and fill Thurles” if their game with Galway were to be paired with that.
However, apart from the fact that it would mean Galway having to forego home advantage, he didn’t believe it was a runner because of weather considerations.
While March 8 and 15 are football weekends, March 8 is the only other viable alternative for hurling re-fixtures, as the inter-provincial final will be played on March 14.
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