The Tailteann Cup semi-finals, Down play Sligo and Antrim play the winners of Kildare and Laois this afternoon, are due to take place in Croke Park on Sunday afternoon next but a request from Wexford, who play Clare in one of the All-Ireland quarter-finals fixed for Saturday, seeks the dates to be changed because they are hosting Féile na nGael this weekend.
Central Council meets this evening to make a decision on that request which would be a fundamental change, given that a selling point of the Tailteann Cup when it was brought in was those Sunday afternoon slot
Pushing All-Ireland quarter-finals into Saturday has not gone down well in hurling circles and McEntee is convinced there is opportunism at play now to reverse that.
He said the move has come out of meetings on broader scheduling and competition format in football between two of the provinces, Munster and Leinster, during the week.
GAA president Jarlath Burns was part of a delegation that hosted those meetings and the feeling against Saturday All-Ireland hurling quarter-finals was very strong in Munster in particular..
On a practical level, McEntee says Sligo’s preparations won’t be impacted if the change goes ahead, apart from hotel accommodation and training nights. That’s something he says he will deal with.
But he is concerned over the abrupt nature of such a fundamental change that will diminish the second tier football championship.
“This game (Tailteann Cup semi-final) has been booked for months,” said McEntee.
“It has been fixed by Central Council. Everyone has been planning around this date for months… We’ve booked hotels a couple of weeks ago, just to have them or not available. It’s hard enough to get places.
“Apart from those practical issues, the Tailteann Cup is set up in order to try to promote football at these low levels and give a bit of confidence to these teams. To give exposure to them, to help (county) sponsorship and develop the teams.
“What we have here is an opportunity that seems to have arisen from conversations between provincial councils and the GAA president,” he said. “I’m not sure that is a good way to develop policy.
“While the suggestion is it is due to the Féile na nGael, the Munster and Leinster counties have asked for more profile for hurling and Saturday afternoons is not the highest opportunity for that,” said McEntee.
“We have a sponsor too, we have AbbVie and they would love the profile of a Sunday afternoon. I know our county board has been lobbying them for greater funding on the back of that profile.”
Burns is understood to have communicated by email to Sligo this morning outlining that while the Wexford request and their concern over not having volunteers for the Féile is part of the proposed change, fundamental reasons for it are acknowledged too.
With just five games left in the hurling championship, the president is believed to be uncomfortable with two of them going ahead on a Saturday afternoon with a 1.15pm throw in for the first one.
That early scheduling is due to RTÉ’s commitment to showing the URC final between Glasgow Warriors and the Bulls after they defeated Leinster and Munster.
Burns has made hurling a priority in his three-year term and has suggested that with five games left, they should be prioritised.
He also made the point in his communication that when the Tailteann Cup was conceived nobody envisaged such a clash with All-Ireland hurling quarter-finals and that this was the nature of a condensed season which needed to be changed.
McEntee expected the change to go ahead tonight and sees the Tailteann Cup semi-finals being relegated to Saturdays in the future.
“Once you do it once, you have already belittled it,” he said. “The problem for the president is he has come in and he wants to support hurling but he wants to support smaller counties. But this is unnecessary change. It didn’t need to happen.
“Ironically, up until yesterday, Saturday wasn’t available because had Leinster won their URC semi-final, they would have been playing the final in Croke Park on Saturday evening. And this conversation would not have been happening. It happens that Leinster got beaten and the opportunity has come out to swap it.”
There is also irony in a president from a football county driving such a change back in hurling’s favour.
