Council move on county ‘agreements’

MUNSTER Council chiefs have moved to prevent a repeat of the controversy surrounding this year’s provincial senior hurling decider when Waterford officials offered home advantage to their opponents.

Provincial bosses have adopted a motion preventing counties from making similar financial arrangements when fixing the venues of senior hurling championship ties.

The Council have ruled that Cork, Limerick and Tipperary are the only three counties permitted to enter into home-and-away agreements at senior hurling level as they have the only stadia capable of holding such games. Any clashes involving Clare and Waterford are to be scheduled by the Munster Council in consultation with those counties. PRO Jim Forbes believes this ruling will dissuade counties from making financial arrangements over fixtures.

“We wanted to tidy up any loopholes and make sure that when counties do enter into agreements that there are no financial implications. It only applies to the SHC and we have laid down that only Cork, Tipperary and Limerick can have home-and-away agreements, as they’ve the only three suitable venues in the province. This was an issue that needed to be addressed. It caused confusion during the summer and we don’t want that to happen again.”

Meanwhile, all five games in next year’s Munster U21FC are set to be fixed for midweek and played under floodlights. Three of this season’s provincial U21 football ties were played midweek, including the final, and the Munster Council have decided to move the competition away from Saturday afternoons.

Forbes believes the move will alleviate the demands on players involved at senior level in the National Football Leagues and help club U21 football competitions to be played.

“In recent years there have been a lot of demands on U21 players in the springtime who are also on county senior panels. We want to prevent situations whereby players play U21 on Saturday and then National League on Sunday. Playing the U21 games midweek should help. It also frees up the weekends for club competitions as a lot of internal U21 football championships start then. We feel this will also help make better use of the floodlit facilities in our province. The final in Tralee this year was a great success being played on a Wednesday night. We had a great crowd that night compared to what we were getting on Saturday afternoons.”

Meanwhile, Sunday week’s Limerick SFC final between Adare and Monaleen has been switched to Newcastlewest due to the International Rules first test being played at the Gaelic Grounds on Saturday, Oct 23rd.