Bring all games to neutral venues, says Flanagan

THE campaign to introduce a home and away system in the provincial championships may be gaining support but one manager has called for neutral venues to be considered for all championship fixtures, including the All-Ireland qualifiers.

Westmeath football boss Pat Flanagan has called attention to the time his side spent on the road for their Leinster Championship defeat to Wexford earlier this month and the midlanders face another unenviable trip on Saturday, away to Antrim in Belfast.

“The trip to Wexford was about three hours,” Flanagan explained. “Two hours, fifty-five minutes to be exact but it ended up taking us three hours, 20 because you have to stop a few times and let lads stretch their legs before a game.

“Fellas are putting in so much effort these days, they are working in the gym long before the season starts in January and I feel that they should look at playing these games at neutral venues.”

Flanagan’s suggestion bucks a recent trend towards playing games at one of the side’s home venues.

The double-header in Wexford Park, when the home county’s footballers beat Flanagan’s Westmeath and the hurlers faced Kilkenny, was judged a resounding success. Kilkenny chairman Paul Kinsella was certainly impressed by a crowd of 16,000-plus judging by yesterday’s reports that the Leinster county was considering a proposal which would establish home and away arrangements on a more formal basis in the province. The alternative is games in neutral venues but such fixtures have consistently failed to draw crowds and lacked atmosphere.

“Unfortunately, the thing is that we are in the middle of a recession and we just don’t have the resources to be going up the day before and staying overnight which you would like to do for these longer trips,” said Flanagan.

“We were looking at it but it doesn’t look like happening which is a pity. Wexford went down to Tullamore the night before they played Offaly and I believe that had a major effect on them that day.”

Flanagan hopes that the two-and-a-half hour trip to Belfast takes less of a toll on his side.

“There is no point saying different, it has been difficult since the defeat to Wexford. I was surprised how poor we were that day, and I still am, but the travelling didn’t help. All the players complained of fatigue before the game.

“There are a lot of young players in our side though. Apart from lads like Dessie Dolan, Gary Connaughton and one or two others, the rest are in their early twenties. We have three U21s and another half-dozen are only 22. Lads that age have a great ability to bounce back very quickly and we were fairly happy with a challenge game we played against Longford last week. We’d be hopeful of putting on a better show in Belfast anyway.”