Dublin clubs now face gruelling backlog

PAT GILROY admits it will take something extraordinary to complete the Dublin’s senior football and hurling club championships in time for the Leinster competitions.

Right now, there is a real possibility Dublin may not have a representative in the football provincial championship. With seven rounds remaining, his players are in line to play for their clubs on Sunday week as the county’s Central Competition Committee attempts to clear a fixtures backlog.

The county champions are scheduled to face their equivalent in Meath on October 23. Meanwhile, Dublin’s hurling winners will play the Westmeath champions a week later but only one group game has been played with another seven stages to complete before a victor is found.

“I think it’s going to be very difficult,” said Gilroy.

“It’ll be the Dublin championship blitz if they manage to do it! It’d be like the Sigerson Cup. It’s a thing for the other day but you have to think about the crossover between hurling and football because of the two county teams the Dublin championship is going to suffer and I don’t think it should ever suffer. It’s a very important part of the GAA.

“The club championship is a quality competition and if both of them get run off in three weeks it’ll be survival of the fittest more than who’s the best team. I just think it’s something that we all need to sit back and say ‘should we be calling off football matches for hurling matches and vice versa?’”

Gilroy dismissed the suggestion he was only concerned in having his players fit to train and play for Dublin.

“No, I would be very happy to see club championship played during the summer but it didn’t happen because there were inter-county hurling matches the following week and hurling clubs wanted their football players available and that stopped it.

“They are probably less likely to pick up an injury in one of our games as a club match.”