Lack of players forces Longford U21 pull out

LONGFORD GAA chiefs have cited a lack of available players as the reasoning behind their decision to pull out of the Leinster U21HC.

Longford were due to face Kildare on Saturday in the opening round of the Leinster U21 ‘A’ HC, with the winners of the A competition going forward to the main U21 championship to compete against big guns Kilkenny and Wexford.

But Longford have been forced to withdraw due to difficulties to field a team and fixture congestion impinging on their attempts to switch the game to another date.

“It’s a combination of things that we can’t field next Saturday”, said county board chairman Pat Cahill.

“We’ve a few lads away, a few lads doing exams and then six lads playing senior in the National League on Sunday.

“Those players were unwilling to play two big games on successive days.”

The possibility of staging the game tomorrow night was mooted but with no floodlight pitch available in the county on the night, that proposal was shelved.

“We did look at switching the game to Friday night. Kildare and the Leinster Council had no problem with that, but we couldn’t get competent floodlights for hurling.

“The problem we face is that nearly every club in the county trains now on a Friday night, so they couldn’t give us their pitch to play the game on.

“In fairness to Kildare, they tried to facilitate us by playing the game next week but with the way competitions are run that wasn’t a possibility.

“They are playing Leinster club leagues next week on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights so that was a problem for us.

“As well as that the Leinster Council had fixed the dates for the competition a good while ago. They need to play the next rounds fairly soon so they can’t have too many hold-ups if they’re going to get the competition run off in time.”

Cahill was disappointed that they had to withdraw but a lack of playing resources creates problems in the county. He refused to criticise the GAA for not adequately promoting hurling in the weaker counties, despite Longford hurling being at a low ebb. The senior side bottom of NHL Division 3B with no points from five games.

“The reality is that when you only have two or three hurling clubs, you’re going to have problems like this.

“We’re trying to do our best to improve hurling standards and we get help from the GAA. We have a reasonable setup at underage level. But it’s just hard as we’re in a small, weak county.”