FRC staged interprovincial tournament to take place on October 18 and 19

INTERPRO'S: The Football Review Committee-staged interprovincial tournament will take place on October 18 and 19. Picture: Ben McShane/Sportsfile

The Football Review Committee-staged interprovincial tournament will take place on October 18 and 19.

It is envisaged that Croke Park will host the Saturday cup and shield finals and possibly the previous Friday evening’s semi-finals.

As the FRC looks to finalise its proposals to Central Council on November 2 before the rule changes are voted at Special Congress on November 30 with a mind to coming into operation for next year, the matches will be among the final “sandbox games” in which the alterations have been trialled.

It is hoped the games, which will involve inter-county players whose clubs have exited their respective county championships, will be open to the public and the Saturday finals either televised or streamed.

FRC chairman Jim Gavin has stressed the importance of people being able to see the new rules in action. They include four points for a goal, a two-point arc 40 metres from each goal, a ‘solo and go’ from frees where the fouled player can play on, the ball being brought forward as much as 50m for an act of dissent and a clock/hooter.

Both RTÉ and TG4 are due to televise United Rugby Championship fixtures that Saturday evening. Croke Park plays host to the Leinster-Munster URC fixture the previous Saturday.

In what will be the first interprovincial Gaelic football game since 2016, if the previous semi-final rota is continued as per the Railway Cup, Munster and Ulster will play either Connacht or Leinster in the Friday fixtures.

However, speaking on RTÉ Radio 1’s “Sunday Sport” last week, Dublin’s six-time All-Ireland SFC winning manager Gavin explained it is not within the remit of his group to return the Railway Cup, which was disbanded after games were postponed in 2017.

“It’s our intent to run a competition, we can call it an interprovincial, it’s not a Railway Cup,” he said. “We don’t have the authority to do that but it’s an interpro where the inter-county players who are probably no longer involved in the championship will play semi-finals on a Friday night and on the Saturday evening the cup and shield finals and those two games will be televised, we hope.” 

Meanwhile, the draws for the 2025 provincial senior football championships will also take place in October. Clare and Kerry will for the second year running receive byes to the Munster semi-finals but could face one another in the last four.

In Ulster, this year’s preliminary round teams Cavan and Monaghan as well as the 2023 pairing of Antrim and Armagh will earn quarter-final byes meaning two of Derry, Donegal, Down, Fermanagh and Tyrone will face off at the first hurdle. While it is Galway’s turn to travel to New York as it is Roscommon to London for their Connacht SFC preliminary round and quarter-final games respectively.

Leinster could continue with their practice of rewarding counties who reached the province’s semi-finals in the previous season with quarter-final byes. In that case, it would be Dublin, Kildare, Louth and Offaly through to the last eight.