Furious Con claim cup ban ‘unfair’

CORK CONSTITUTION are on a collision course with the provincial branch of the IRFU after a ruling yesterday saw them dumped out of the Munster Senior Cup.

The holders of the once prized trophy are furious at the decision, which they deem to be unfair and unwarranted.

Club President Pat O’Keeffe last night launched a scathing attack for what he said was an unacceptable decision taken this week by officers of the Branch that will preclude the club from defending the trophy.

Young Munster, Constitution’s semi-final opponents, have now been given the go-ahead to participate in the decider against UCC.

O’Keeffe last night promised that this would not be the end of the matter, declaring: “We feel very aggrieved; we have been portrayed as the guilty party in this issue because we could not agree to play our semi-final on February 27 on the basis of health “We were shorn of a huge number of players but, most importantly, we could not field the required number of front row forwards. We have an onus to our players to ensure that they can play the game safely and we could not have guaranteed that in this instance based on the fact that a number of players would not have had the requisite experience at this level,” he said.

O’Keeffe went on to emphasise that his club were not the guilty party in the failed efforts to play this semi-final: “We secured our place at this stage of the tournament way back at the end of September. We were approached by an official of the Munster Branch some time in January to ask us to play the game on February 7 and we agreed to do that to the point that we sought, and were granted, a postponement of an All-Ireland League game against UL Bohemian fixed for that date.

“For some reason, the game was never played; apparently the Branch never followed it up and it meant that we didn’t have a game that day and neither did Young Munster. We now have had to re-arrange the AIB fixture and it seems no consideration was given by the Branch to the fact that we co-operated so far back.

“The Munster Senior Cup has suffered for a variety of reasons over the last decade or more, yet it is a competition that we hold in high esteem. We wanted to defend our title and it is very disappointing that, through no fault of our own, we have now been denied that opportunity. We were willing to play the game on other dates too and we feel hard done by after this decision to be honest,” concluded O’Keeffe.

Nobody from the Munster Branch was available for comment last night.