GAA Club scene set for July 17th throw-in
By Shane Brophy
GAA clubs should learn over the next few days the formats and dates for the restructured hurling and football championships in the county will be run.
A meeting of the management committee of Tipperary County Board will take place this evening (Wednesday) to decide on the formats for the hurling and football championships. Because of the special powers afforded by Special Congress last April, the management committee can decide on the formats without a full county board meeting of club delegates.
It is expected that the county championship formats in senior hurling and football, O Riain Cup hurling and intermediate hurling & football will be retained with 16 teams in each grade with four groups of four, with the top two teams from each progressing to the quarter final, while the bottom team in each group will go into the relegation semi-finals.
It was feared last week that quarter finals might not be possible in the eleven week timeframe with the clubs in the North & Mid divisions meeting to discuss it but with the GAA having brought forward its restart date from July 31st to July 17th, it has created extra space to fit quarter finals in after clubs in North & Tipperary met separately in recent weeks looking for them to be retained.
However, the divisional link in the senior and intermediate hurling championships won’t be retained this year. These championships still could be played later in the year, without county players, but there is lukewarm interested at the moment at such a prospect.
“Starting two weeks earlier on July 17th makes an awful difference,” admitted Tipperary CCC chairman Joe Kennedy.
“It’s a huge weight off our shoulders in terms of trying to facilitate quarter finals as much as possible.
“We are looking to try and incorporate quarter finals but the big problem will be dual clubs but there is probably a way around it.”
With the crowd restriction of 200 people in place up to July 20th, it is likely that the club football championship will begin from July 17-19 with the group stages of the hurling championship beginning a week later when numbers increase to 500 people.
The County Board are aiming to have the county finals played by September 27th, utilising eleven of the thirteen weekends open to them and in an effort to save time could play both the county hurling and football finals on the same weekend to preserve time, provided a club isn’t involved in both finals.
“We want to try and finish up around September 27th, which would give the county teams three and four weeks respectively to prepare for their restart,” Kennedy revealed.
“There’s seven weeks to the end of August so you’d have the group stages in both hurling and football completed as well as the quarter finals in one of those. There would be a lot of inter-county players who would have their campaigns wrapped up that that stage.”
Once the formats for the various championships are passed, the draws for the schedule of games in the county hurling championships will take place at CCC meeting next week, with the football draws having taken place prior to the shutdown.