McGrath Cup facing axe if Tipperary and Waterford withdraw

Munster secretary Simon Moroney has not ruled out axing next January’s McGrath Cup should Tipperary and Waterford follow Clare and Limerick’s example and withdraw from it.

As part of their protest against the seeded provincial championship draw next year, the four 2013 squads stated they won’t make themselves available for the pre-season competition or Munster’s Railway Cup panel.

Both Clare and Limerick’s county boards have confirmed they won’t be fielding teams in the McGrath Cup and Moroney is well aware of the problem posed to the council.

“Every year we ask the counties to participate as we do with the colleges in the province and they make up their own minds,” he said.

“I’m not going to comment on the rationale for the views of counties. We’re currently asking counties whether they are or aren’t competing and then we’ll make a decision whether to proceed if there are low numbers.

“Occasionally, some of the counties and colleges don’t participate in one or other of the codes and we have a regulation that allows withdrawals taking into account the actual participants. But obviously with the four county panels having indicated they wouldn’t participate in it, we will consider that and how to proceed.

“Our competition controls committee will meet over the next couple of weeks to do that as well as the draws for the U21, minors and next year’s club championships. It’ll be the democratic decision of the council and we’ll move on from there.”

Earlier this week, the Clare County Board backed their players’ stance towards the McGrath Cup while the official Limerick Twitter account yesterday confirmed they also won’t be taking part.

Moroney played down the cost to the council of counties withdrawing from the competition or indeed the cancellation of the McGrath Cup.

“It’s not really a material consideration. The reality is it’s a secondary competition at the early time of the year. The origin of it was to get counties up and running before the start of the league.

“I know it’s valued by the colleges coming up to the Sigerson Cup. It’s a plus for them but for an optimum competition you want a reasonable mixture between both colleges and counties.”

February’s Railway Cup squad could also be impacted by the players’ protest. Moroney said: “I would say it’ll be a consideration for the management committees that are put in place by counties in due course because obviously there will be players off limits.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it and hopefully we’ll still be able to compete effectively in that competition.”

Meanwhile, Moroney explained the reasoning behind the council’s decision to grant Clare’s request to push back their senior club hurling winners’ semi-final against their Cork equivalents from November 10 to 17.

The Clare championship, delayed because of their senior hurlers’ successful run through the qualifiers, will now conclude on the weekend on November 9-10.

Once Cork agreed to the proposal, the province granted permission.

“The Cork champions were drawn to play Clare’s champions in the semi-final and it would have been a bigger issue had they been drawn in the quarter-final. There would be a bigger provision needed then.

“Fortunately, when the draw was made last December that’s the way it came out of the hat. Who would have foreseen Clare and Cork’s All-Ireland final going to a replay, the second year in-a-row?”