Carlow Hurling Championship will be played off by early August too, Iād say. Round 2 of 5 in the round robin stages this weekend.
Iām fairly sure KK managed to run off their football championship in April/May despite the challenges the split season posed them.
2 Likes
Wexford championship at intermediate down starts this week. Wexford have also brought in a weekend pass for games, ā¬20 and gives you entry to all games for the weekend and any mid week games in that round too.
1 Like
Good article in the Daily Mail today by Shane McGrath on how the Gaa have had all of June by themselves and basically there has been one good game Clare v Limerick in Munster hurling final. With how poor the product is the Gaa are lucky they are not going up against the Premier league. Hard to disagree with him.
1 Like
They are blessed there no World Cup on this summer.
Sure the Super Sunday in the Munster Hurling Round Robin coincided with the pulsating final day of the English Premier League title race. Just lucky thereās no World Cup this summer due to FIFA corruption.
Waterford people were lucky they didnāt get to see the defeat to Cork because it clashed with West Ham v Manchester City.
1 Like
Even more good fortune that the drubbing at the hands of Clare went under the radar.
1 Like
I can see them ditching this again, ditching the league, playing an elite 10 team league, 9 game competition starting around the end of March with the top 4 or 5 graduating to an all Ireland series. League winner gets a shield and straight passage to final. Bottom 2 relegated Provincial Championships stand alone midweek.
Would be epic, just play the games in the appropriate stadia. Would love to see some Limerick games back in Kilmallock for example.
One of my favourite games of recent years was going to see Cork v Kk under lights in Pair Ui Rinn.
So under the radar that I and many others will be tipping Waterford up as All-Ireland favourites ahead of next yearās championship.
Despite the status of Waterford as one of the pre-Championship favourites, Walsh Park with a capacity of circa 10,500 didnāt even sell out for Waterfordās two games. The spectator buy in and public interest in this out of season championship has been poor.
Between season tickets, provincial and county board allocations thereās not a lot left to go to clubs.
Then thereās an element of the facilities at play here.
Most fans want a stand ticket and have no interest in the terrace.
Itās pretty impossible to get stand tickets for Walsh Park and the terrace isnāt great either, too shallow and basically gravel thrown on the ground.
If you have 3 other chances to follow your team in comfort over the 6 weeks itās an easy decision to skip the game and watch on tv.
I work with a die hard Tipp fan in South Tipp who would attend nearly every match possible in both hurling and football, they would even head up to follow the footballers in places like down, armagh and Antrim. None of the crew who would go to those matches bothered going to waterford game this year.
Fair play to the GAA, putting all ireland football final up against Liverpool and Man Utd on August 19th would have been nuts.
Be ideal, wonāt ditch Munster hurling though.
1 Like
But twas the now disbanded CPA that devised this set up.
Maybe they should have made provision with their big split season idea for a replay at the business end of the Championship, rather then the lottery of a penalty shoot out in an All Ireland quarter final.
All Ireland quarter final
Again they could have just replayed it next Saturday so not the fault of the split season
1 Like
Croke Park is busy next weekend.
Doesnāt have to be in Croke Park
A penalty shoot out is not a lottery. Itās a test of men.