Ulster may opt to play club final on Saturday
Last Sunday the club final between Crossmaglen Rangers of Armagh and Naomh Conall of Donegal went by the board, as did the junior final between Monaghan’s Corduff and Swanlinbar of Cavan, and Ulster Council PRO Oliver Galligan said yesterday that he and his colleagues were keen to have the game replayed this weekend.
“We have to wait and see, that’s all we can do,” said Galligan yesterday.
“Playing in the evening isn’t really an option because of frost and so on, but we’d consider Saturday if we have to. “That said, if it’s fine enough to play on a Saturday it’d probably be fine enough to play on the Sunday as well.
“There’s an element of time pressure insofar as our football champions are down to play in London on December 12th, so we’ll have to have the competition run off before that. That’s not to run down the junior football final, which is important as well, but the senior game is a concern at the moment.”
Galligan said the supporters had to be taken into consideration when making the decision to postpone last Sunday’s game given the distances they would have been travelling.
“It’s a good trip from Donegal in particular and from Armagh, we had to bear that in mind. For the club finals it’s the big day out for the members of those clubs so it wouldn’t have been fair to let them travel all that way and decide to call the games off then, so we made the decisions early.”
Galligan said he and his colleagues are hopeful of good news of the weather this weekend.
“There’s talk of wind from the northwest, and if that comes through we should be okay to play our games.”
The Leinster Council also said it’s at “the mercy of the weather” when it comes to refixing its games which fell foul of the cold snap last weekend.
The club SHC final between Oulart the Ballagh of Wexford and O’Loughlin Gaels of Kilkenny, as well as the junior hurling final between Drumcullen of Offaly and Kilkenny’s John Lockes were both called off, as was the Leinster Club Special JHC final between Wolfe Tones of Meath and Fingallians from Dublin.
“At the moment the games are fixed for next weekend again,” said Leinster Council sources, “but we’re at the mercy of the weather. We’ll be keeping an eye on the weather forecast as the week goes on, obviously, it’s a bit early to speculate on what next weekend is like but we’ll just have to keep fixing the games.”
The Leinster Council concurred with the views of their colleagues in the north about playing games at night: “It’s probably colder in the evening, so playing games under lights isn’t a runner. You might get away with games played at two o’clock in the afternoon, but with people working and so obviously that isn’t feasible. We’ll have to wait and see.”
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