Frozen out
By Shane Brophy
The re-imposition of Level 5 Covid restrictions until the end of January at the earliest, has brought local sport to a virtual halt once more.
Last week’s government announcement has led to golf courses and tennis clubs being closed after briefly reopening for a four-week period during level 3 restrictions. Only horse racing and greyhound racing, behind closed doors, continue to as normal.
GAA, soccer and rugby clubs, who would have hoped to return to some level of activity in the New Year have had to lock their gates once more as training is not permitted, only for elite sportspeople.
Inter-county training for the Tipperary senior hurlers and footballers is due to resume on Friday 15th January, however, this is under review according to the GAA, due to the rise in Covid-19 transmission rates across the country. Despite moving into 2021, the impact of Covid-19 and its associated restrictions, is not going to go away any time soon with much of the first quarter of the year set to have some element of similarity to 2020.
GAA
In terms of local GAA, Tipperary County Board were hoping to restart unfinished competitions from 2020 from February 1st, but that date is highly unlikely to be met, indeed, new county chairperson Joe Kennedy is sceptical about matches being played in March as well.
“It is hard to see the level of cases dropping to one hundred per day in a month for club players to get back and do a bit of training,” he said.
“It was a bit different last year as all club and county teams had been back training when the lockdown happened. This time lads would not have done much in November and December so you’d need a few weeks lead in for any competition before you could start.”
The main competition that needs to be completed is the Junior ‘A’ hurling championship as a winner is required for promotion to fill the void left by Galtee Rovers who were relegated from intermediate. Toomevara, Holycross/Ballycahill and Arravale Rovers are through to the county semi-finals and will be joined by the South winners, Carrick Swan or Grangemockler/Ballyneale.
Under 21 football is down to county finals while minor football is also expected to be completed at some stage, but Junior ‘B’ hurling and football is unlikely to be continued any further.
“I couldn’t see us playing any of the outstanding competitions before the first of March.
“I would even be worried about the start date for the National Leagues, on 27-28 February,” he added.
“Last year teams had a bit of training done but our hurlers have been out of action since the middle of November and players are tipping away doing a small bit themselves, but they would be a long way off what is required.”
With the inter-county minor hurling and football, and under 20 football due to begin in March, Kennedy is also concerned at how those three squads can be put together.
“To pick a panel for county minor hurlers and footballers because there was no underage tournaments last year. They could go on the 15 & 16 panels from the year before, but a lot of things could have changed since that, some lads might have gotten bigger, and some lads might have lost interest. There are no schools matches either, so it is very hard to contemplate what is going on there,” he said.
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