Ulster final moved, Connaught staying put

Benedict XVI

From the Indo

Connacht Council hold firm on final
THERE will be a feast of football on July 10 after it was confirmed last night that the Ulster, Munster and Connacht finals will all be played on that date.

There had been reports that the Connacht Council had agreed to move their final to avoid such a clash but this was last night dismissed by council secretary John Prenty.

"Our final is definitely going ahead on July 10 as scheduled and along with the Munster final it is being televised that day," said Prenty. "Our match is starting at either 2.10 or 2.15 and the Munster match probably at 4 or 4.15."

The logjam was brought about by the decision of the Ulster Council on Tuesday night to move its showpiece to Croke Park for the second year in-a-row. Originally fixed for July 17, that now clashes with the Leinster final and so had to be moved forward a week. This led to reports that a request had been made to the Connacht Council to swap dates.

"We received no formal request from the Ulster Council to switch our final to July 17, and the only approach made to was an informal one from the GAC and we turned that down," said Prenty.

"We fixed a date for our football final as long ago as last October and a move to July 17 would mean that the losers of our final would have a week left to prepare for the fourth round of the All-Ireland qualifiers. We also found that a change of date could also disappoint many overseas fans.

"The news about our reported date change spread quickly on the internet, and all day yesterday we had calls from people in a huge number of countries. They expressed their concern that the date had been changed and that they might not be able to make alternative flight arrangements to travel home for the match. But they were obviously delighted when we assured them that the final was going ahead on July 10."

The provisional venues for the Connacht final have been fixed. If Mayo get through to face Galway, the game will be played at Pearse Stadium, while if it's a Roscommon v Galway final Hyde Park will be the venue.

The second Ulster semi-final on Sunday week will be played at either Clones or Casement Park, the Monaghan venue will host a Donegal-Derry pairing while the Belfast ground will be the venue for an Armagh-Derry clash.

And the Ulster Council could run into major congestion problems if one or both of its semi-finals end in a draw with any replays set for July 3. The new revised date for the Northern final means that if a replay is needed for either the Cavan v Tyrone or Derry v Armagh/Donegal ties, the winners will have only a week to recover from their exertions before they line out at Croke Park.

Of course, one rematch has already been needed in the Ulster championship, with Armagh and Donegal having to meet again at Clones, on Saturday (5.30), with the winners facing Derry on June 26.

Cavan and Tyrone meet on Sunday, also at Clones, so if that game ends in a draw the Ulster Council may be pressurised into refixing the replay for June 26. However, this is also fraught with difficulty as a change would mean that the winners of a Cavan-Tyrone replay would have an extra week to recover for the final.

The option of playing the final at Croke Park on Saturday, July 16, 24 hours prior to the Leinster football showdown, was also explored but the northern body felt that a Saturday date would hurt attendance figures.

The Ulster Council, who were delighted with last year's crowd of over 67,000 for the Armagh-Donegal clash, will need a crowd of over 50,000 to make worthwhile the repeat switch from Clones, which has only a capacity of 35,500.

Last year's Croke Park gate receipts were over €1m and even with the greater costs of staging the match at the Dublin venue, the net cash return was over double that of the maximum financial take from St Tiernach's Park.

Paddy Hickey

The Ulster Council could have a real headache with fixture congestion here. It's good to see that Connaught are holding firm which will allow the final losers 2 weeks before the 4th round qualifier, something that was taken into account in this years master fixtures because of the failure rate of provincial losers in previous years with only 1 weeks rest

Mighty_Mouse

yes good call out of connaught council.

Lemlin

If Cavan make the Ulster final, Croke Park will be full no bother!

cournioni

Lemlin wrote:

If Cavan make the Ulster final, Croke Park will be full no bother!

Well, as long as Derry don't make it to the final!

Lemlin

I hope Derry will be long gone by that stage. Hopefully Armagh/Donegal will beat them and then they'll go out in the qualifiers.

The last thing I want is for them to knock out Cavan yet again.

Flukey

I don't think Cavan will be stepping on the grass of Croke Park this year, unless they can get through the qualifiers. July 10th will be a good day, and I plan to be in Croke Park that day, as I will be tomorrow. I think the Ulster Council will get the final they expected last year, with Armagh to beat Tyrone.

Lemlin

I honestly don't think they will either but I certainly hope they will. They may of been terrible against Antrim but there's always the chance that Tyrone will have an off day and that everything Cavan touch will turn to gold.

I know its a long shot but Gaelic football is a funny old thing.

And I think alot of neutrals would like to see them have a run of sucess too, even if just to get to the quarter finals.