When in Rome: St Brendan's Killarney left frustrated by colleges GAA fixture stand-off

A school trip to Rome this week means famed Kerry school don’t have sufficient numbers to field a team in today's Corn Uí Mhuirí game - but their bid to reschedule has hit some roadblocks

KICK IN THE GUT: St Brendan's Killarney (in the green) say they offered notice of their issues and agreed an alternative date with Clonakilty CC. 

MAJOR uncertainty surrounds Wednesday’s Munster PPS SFC (Corn Uí Mhuirí) tie involving Clonakilty Community College and St Brendan’s Killarney, with the Kerry school not in a position to fulfil the fixture on account of having only eight players available.

Fixed for Bishopstown’s 4G pitch at 1.30pm, St Brendan’s will not be travelling to the Cork venue. A school trip to Rome this week means they don’t have sufficient numbers to field a team.

For Clonakilty’s part, they will be travelling up to Bishopstown unless there is an 11th hour change of date from Munster GAA PPS, the post-primary wing of the provincial body. If that change of date isn’t forthcoming - an unlikely happening given Munster post-primary officials have not accepted the alternative December 18 date agreed by both schools last week - then the points will be awarded to Clonakilty and the Kerry school will be left in the precarious position of having to extract a result from their final group game against St Flannan's in order to advance to the quarter-finals in the new year.

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At the end of September, it came to the attention of the St Brendan's, or Sem, management that a school trip to Rome involving two-thirds of their Corn Uí Mhuirí team was falling on the same week as their second Group 2 outing against Clon.

Contact was made with Munster GAA PPS Officer Eoin Ryan, who informed them that any alternative date to Wednesday, November 11 must be agreed by the two schools, otherwise the fixture would have to be conceded.

St Brendan’s then set about contacting Clonakilty during the recent midterm break to try and establish an alternative date that suited both schools. But of the five dates proposed by St Brendan’s, none worked for the west Cork school for a variety of reasons such as their proximity to Clon’s final group outing in the Corn Uí Mhuirí, as well as the knockout fixtures in the Cork Colleges Simcox Cup.

The Sem’s next move was to ask Clonakilty to propose a date this side of Christmas that would be amenable to them. December 18 was the date put forward by Clon, which the Sem gratefully agreed to.

An email was subsequently sent to the Munster PPS's Eoin Ryan on November 3 outlining how both schools were in agreement to change the date of the second-round fixture from November 11 to December 18. But when no reply to this email was received, and this week’s circulated fixtures stated that Clon and the Sem were to meet at Bishopstown on Wednesday, the Killarney school made fresh contact Monday with Munster GAA to establish what was happening with the December 18 alternative put forward last week. The reply from Munster GAA PPS was that they were not accepting the December 18 alternative date.

Munster GAA PPS were contacted by the Irish Examiner on Tuesday morning regarding the fixture. No response has yet been received.

The understanding is that Munster GAA PPS want all group fixtures wrapped up by December 9, with the quarter-final draw to take place around that time.

There is also the concern that fixing the game in mid-December could leave it open to postponement because of adverse weather conditions, meaning the group phase would not be concluded going into the Christmas break.

The frustration from the Sem’s side is that they found an alternative date that Clon were agreeable to, as was instructed of them by Munster GAA PPS, but when that date was then passed onto Munster GAA PPS, there was initial silence and then rejection.