Kernan to manage Ulster side

Joe Kernan will be in charge of the Ulster senior football team when the Interprovincial Championship returns to the GAA calendar in February.

The former Armagh All-Ireland winning boss helped guide Ulster to the title back in 2009, the last year the Interpros were held.

The 2012 competition will get underway on Sunday, February 19 when Ulster face Connacht and a Sean Boylan-led Leinster team battle it out with Munster.

Kernan is a long-time advocate of the Interpro matches and used a recent Belfast Telegraph column to back the resumption of the historic Championship.

"I know that Ulster players relish the opportunity to play in the competition. It may have its detractors, just as the much-maligned International Rules has, yet the commitment of the vast majority of players remains absolute," he said.

"When the Railway Cup competition - I much prefer this title to the Interpro series - was last staged in 2009, it was accommodated in November and this certainly did nothing to help its image, hemmed in as it was at the end of a busy year.

"The final was staged in London and although this was maybe a pleasant weekend away for the players, the powers-that-be are sensibly going to stage next year's decider in this country at a venue to be decided when the finalists are known.

"Competitions like the Railway Cup and International Rules are regarded in some quarters as being unnecessary appendages to the fixtures calendar, but I believe that these and other tournaments can be accommodated with sensible planning in advance."