The GAA have announced the times, dates and venues for forthcoming games in the 2nd round of the Bank of Ireland Football championship qualifiers and the 2nd and 3rd rounds of the Guinness Hurling Championship.
Saturday, July 1st:
Bank of Ireland Football Championship
Celtic Park
Derry v Kildare (6pm)
Pairc Tailteann
Meath v Roscommon (7pm)
Pearse Park
Longford v Tipperary (7pm)
Guinness Hurling Championship Qualifier Round 2
Cusack Park (Mullingar)
Westmeath v Laois (7pm)
Parnell Park
Dublin v Clare (6pm)
Tullamore
Offaly v Limerick (7pm)
Sunday, July 2nd
Bank of Ireland Football Championship
Cusack Park (Mullingar)
Westmeath v Limerick (2pm)
Guinness Hurling Championship Qualifier Round 2
Walsh Park
Waterford v Galway (2pm)
Saturday July 8th
Bank of Ireland Football Championship
Clones
Monaghan v Offaly/Wexford (4.30pm)
Sadly it's not really up to us to make this decision. One way or another there should be an extra week for the losers of that game - but then that wouldn't be following the fine Offaly tradition of taking unfair treatment with a smile on our faces.
Hopefully it won't be an issue, but if it is, then I'll be expecting Ollie Daly to sort things out for us. If not he'd better not have the neck to come round looking for votes as a public representative ever again.
Ron wrote:I'm not liking the general brand of "optimism" around here with regard to the Wexford game.
To be fair, it's more of a what if situation. All too often we've gone into games with an attitude that we're not looking past the next match. Then when the situation rolls around, it's too late to do anything about it, like the hurling semi against Kilkenny last year, where we suddenly had six days to prepare for a Waterford game - nobody mentions these things till it's too late.
Both Offaly and Wexford should be ensuring that that game is not played till the 15th.
They accommodated Kildare by twice pushing back Offaly's fixture against Wexford over a spurious objection, yet there's no budge on moving the subsequent qualifier back.
I would assume that if sufficient representations were made, it would be done. After all, nobody minds playing a week later after a win, or when both teams are in the same boat.
If it does go ahead on the 8th, Monaghan are strong favourites over either team, but then Monaghan know that, and I've no doubt whoever their guy is that obtained designated status for them will be on the case in this matter too.
Plus I already have my flight into Shannon booked, the GAC should factor that in too......
Is it too late to negotiate now?
With all the fuss over the Kildare subs issue, it looks like we've sleepwalked into a potential 6 day turnaround.
Feck it, we accommodated Limerick hurlers by playing them on a Thursday night 3 years ago. We gave up home advantage to Waterford hurlers last year. It's time some county did us a good turn for a change!
There's no way it should be too late. At the end of the year an extra week in that fixture is not going to make any difference.
The playing of the hurling in Carlow was as much to accomodate the supporters as anything. It's clear to me what needs to be done - if we do end up playing Monaghan, it should be fixed for Ennis, to make up a treble header.
Remember that the All-Ireland Finals are a week earlier this year, to give Tiger & Co a free shot at a puck-around in Kildare. The knock-on from this is that the GAC might not be so accomodating to requests to put games back a week, for fear of the need for replays etc. I wouldn't hold my breadth on this one, but we should certainly ask for fair recognition of our status as the "shining light" that being a small county does NOT mean you cant also be a decent Dual county.
Bord na Mona man wrote:Is it too late to negotiate now?
With all the fuss over the Kildare subs issue, it looks like we've sleepwalked into a potential 6 day turnaround.
Looks like the powers that be have firstly handed Kildare fans a slap by sending them to Derry, 7 days after their last match, on the same weekend as the Derby Festival...(big weekend in the Kildare/Newbridge area)
The Chairman of the Leinster Board took a puck at them in his programme notes for the Dublin Coronation last Sunday. They're not too happy about it, according to the Indo.
While I'd imagine no-one is happy with them, that doesn't change the fact that that's a very public statement to make - I'm surprised O'Neill went down that road. The DRA was put there to keep cases out of the courts - it's only fulfilling that duty, albeit not very well at times.
Now it's just going to lead to a lot of conspiracy theory among Kildare fans who are aggrieved at having to miss the Derby to travel to Derry. (Or miss their footballers so they can see the Derby!). BS conspiracy theory, but it'll be there nonetheless.
