Monaghan no-show won’t please us, says Bourke
After a meeting on Monday night, board officials confirmed they won’t be fielding a team as the players have made themselves unavailable.
The panel are in support of Mattie Lennon who stepped down as manager last Friday after the county board scheduled a list of intermediate club fixtures for this evening, the same time as their regular training session and just four days before the final in Tullamore.
In protest, the players had threatened to withdraw their services for the league decider and now also look set to pull out of the Nicky Rackard Cup if certain conditions weren’t met, including Lennon’s return.
But the board have called their bluff and informed the GAA’s Central Competitions Control Committee of their situation.
On TV3 yesterday, Monaghan hurler Mickey McHugh said the county board had already arranged club football fixtures for Sunday.
After topping Division 3A with four wins and a draw from five games, Monaghan were favourites for the final.
Fingal boss Bourke acknowledges them as the best team in the division but had been hoping for another crack at them after losing last month’s round two game by five points.
“It’s fierce disappointing for the lads if it comes to pass that there’s no game. It’s no way to finish things.
“We’re still going to keep our plan together just in case there’s a resolution. There would be nothing worse than a resolution to be found on Thursday and Friday and we to have taken our foot off the pedal.”
However, a resolution looks extremely unlikely as the players request that this evening’sintermediate club football games involving panel members be switched was turned down by the county board.
Bourke, a former goalkeeper with Fingal, has seen the massive strides made by Monaghan this year.
He believes it’s a big blow for the game of hurling that a compromise couldn’t have been reached by the county’s officials and players.
“I read Monaghan’s statement and we would be very much on par with them in terms of the amount of training (44 session) done.
“We’re disappointed but Monaghan (players) have to do what is right. Hopefully, for the sake of hurling it’s corrected.”
Bourke won’t deny Fingal have had their own issues to sort out as well. For instance, they’re not in the Nicky Rackard Cup this year as the onus is on Dublin to finish their clubchampionships in time as opposed to last year’s delays.
Overall, though, he can’t complain too much about the way the regional team have been treated since they first competed in the Nicky Rackard Cup in 2008. “In general, we’ve had a few teething issues. We’re a second county team so things aren’t as straightforward as say being the number one hurling team in the county.
“The majority of our players would be junior and intermediate and a junior club certainly couldn’t do without four of their players. So we’ve had to get around those issues and had been hoping to drive things on.”
Meanwhile, the Galway-Dublin Division 1A relegation play-off scheduled for 4pm in Tullamore on Sunday has been brought forward to 2.30pm as a result of the Monaghan-Fingal game being called off.
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