Tipp success in 2019 could lead to club chaos
“I shudder to think what will happen when Tipperary reach an All Ireland senior hurling final and or go further in the senior football championship.”
The stark words of Competition Controls Committee (CCC) secretary Tom Maher in his report to Tipperary GAA Convention, of the impact of such a scenario on the completion of club competitions in their current format.
With the Tipperary senior hurlers and footballers exiting the championships by the end of June (although the Tipp under 21 hurlers did eat into weekends in August), it provided the fixtures committee some extra breathing space to get competitions completed on time.
However, he is concerned for the years Tipperary do progress to the latter stages in a number of championships.
“In 2018, there was one round of county senior hurling and one round of county senior football championship games played in April. In the divisions there was upto two rounds played during the same month.
“There is a possibility for the coming year the time allowed to play club championship games could be less in April, due to the Munster senior hurling championship starting earlier on May 12th.
“If we reach the All Ireland hurling final (18th August), we have only 9 weeks in August/September/October to finish our championships. Add 2/3 weeks in April to this figure and it shows all there is left to run our club championships is twelve weeks. That's 12 weeks to run a 17 week championship (taking into account dual clubs)
“It will come to pass some day, as I have said before, that those twelve weeks make no allowance for various happenings that occur like funerals, weddings, inclement weather, walkovers, as there was this year in our senior hurling and intermediate football competitions where both walkovers added 6 extra rounds to our championship. Imagine if we reached the All Ireland championship, our 17 week championship now becomes a 23 week championship,” he said.
To read more, pick up a copy of this weeks Nenagh Guardian locally or subscribe to our e-paper to access it online each Wednesday.