Galway schedule quarter-final

Galway GAA officials have scheduled the remaining quarter-final in their senior hurling championship for next weekend despite Turloughmore lodging an appeal to the Connacht Council against being thrown out of the competition.

The Turloughmore club said they are “deeply disappointed” that the Galway CCC overturned the outcome of a group game after an investigation found they had used an ineligible player.

Defender Matthew Keating played in the United States during the summer having been granted an inter-county transfer. A stipulation of that type of transfer is that a player can’t feature in two different championships in the same year. He played in Turloughmore’s 1-19 to 0-16 group win over Beagh which secured a quarter-final place against Ardrahan. That game ended in a draw and with the Galway CCC overturning the outcome of the group game, Beagh are now scheduled to play Ardrahan in the remaining quarter-final next Sunday.

However, Turloughmore have lodged an appeal and their squad is continuing to train this week in the expectation of being restored to the championship.

“The committee, members and players of Turloughmore hurling club are deeply disappointed by the unilateral decision of the Galway Competition Control Committee to impose the sanction of forfeiture on Turloughmore hurling club and furthermore to effectively remove Turloughmore from the senior county championship,” said a statement from the club.

“Turloughmore has no option but to appeal the decision imposed and its senior hurling panel will continue to train in anticipation of this decision being overturned and Turloughmore being restored to the county championship.

“Turloughmore hurling club regret any inconvenience caused to any other hurling clubs still involved in the championship.”

The chief executive of Galway GAA, John Hynes, said they were asked by the Beagh club to carry out an investigation and said they had no choice but to overturn the outcome of the Turloughmore-Beagh game.