Munster seeding to go ahead

Limerick veteran John Galvin and Tipperary manager Peter Creedon have expressed disappointment in the Munster Council’s decision to go ahead with a seeded draw for next year’s senior football championship.

At an emergency meeting in Munster GAA headquarters in Limerick yesterday to discuss the 2014 SFC structure, council chairman Robert Frost ruled a motion to revisit the competition controls committee’s (CCC) decision to give semi-final byes to Cork and Kerry was out of order.

A statement afterwards stated it would be in breach of rule 3.31 (e), “which states alterations may be considered only on an annual basis”. It’s all but certain there will be a proposal to opt for a return to the open draw next year. However, Cork and Kerry will be placed in separate semi-finals in next Thursday’s 2014 draw.

Frost highlighted at a September 12 meeting of Munster’s CCC, the vote to change from the open draw, which had been in place the last five years, to a seeded one was passed by six votes to three. The recommendation was unanimously accepted by the council later that same evening.

Limerick’s Pa Ranahan hinted the players from four counties may boycott next year’s competition.

He tweeted last night: “Has it ever happened that a provincial championship only had 1 actual match? 2014 could be a first. #Nuclear.”

Despite the Limerick football board’s U-turn this week to back the open draw and the intention of Waterford, who had initially abstained from the vote, to do the same, their changes of mind went unheeded. It means Clare, Limerick, Tipperary and Waterford will now be drawn in Munster quarter-finals with the winners facing Cork and Kerry in the last four.

Last evening’s meeting came on the back of players from the four counties meeting in Tipperary where they agreed Cork and Kerry had been handed an unfair advantage.

They sent a letter to their county boards warning “failure to address these issues will mean that we will have to consider further action”.

The players are now likely to discuss the matter with the GPA, who criticised the previous decision in 2007 to seed the Munster competition. Galvin dismissed the argument that placing Cork and Kerry on opposite sides will prevent one-sided finals.

“It is disappointing,” he said of the Munster Council’s decision. “When the draw is made you’re always hoping you can avoid Kerry and Cork and seriously increase your chances of reaching a Munster final. Limerick over the last 20 years have got to four Munster finals and only one of them was by beating Cork on the way there. Would we have got there had there been a seeded draw every year? The open draw has done wonders for Limerick football.

“Clare got hammered by Cork in last year’s Munster final but it’s the only time going back over the last 10 or 12 years that there has been a bad final. It’s a very poor argument to use for supporting the seeded draw.

“The one-sided finals when Kerry and Cork aren’t in them don’t happen every year. I just don’t know how this will benefit the four counties now.”

Creedon believes the seeding of Cork and Kerry is bad news for all counties in the All-Ireland.

“This is a disadvantage to every county because the worst case scenario for Cork and Kerry will be that they get to the fourth round of the qualifiers. It’s an easier route through to the quarter-finals for the winners.”

Creedon wouldn’t go as far as saying the seeded draw will impact on players’ commitments to Tipperary.

“It’s a decision for each player but we have to get close to beating Cork and Kerry first. It’s not something we have done in the last five or six years.

“We need to achieve that objective first before we can start thinking of winning Munster titles. On a given Sunday, anything can happen. One of them might be off-form and you could hit a purple patch but beating two of them is extremely difficult.”