The Leinster Council have decided against any adjustment to the Dublin-Meath football quarter-final replay, which goes ahead on Sunday week at 4pm as agreed with Croke Park. However, RTÉ are still considering providing live coverage as a simultaneous broadcast along with their existing live schedule.
RTÉ are already contracted to show the Ulster football semi-final between Tyrone and Donegal, which has 2.15pm start, followed by the Munster hurling semi-final between Waterford and Cork, at 4pm, both scheduled for RTÉ2.
Dublin-Meath armchair fans are still set to see their game live on RTÉ1, once final details are agreed in the coming days.
According to Leinster Council chairman Liam O'Neill their hands were tied on the matter. The option of a 6pm Sunday throw-in was ruled out on Garda advice, and so was the option of bringing the game forward to Saturday week as that would break an agreement with Croke Park, who had set aside the next two weeks to carry out essential pitch maintenance.
That had prevented RTÉ from providing live coverage and also put extra pressure on the ticket-search for what was already a guaranteed sell-out. That scenario, and the significant commercial interest surrounding the Dublin-Meath replay, prompted RTÉ into pursuing what will be unprecedented live championship coverage across both stations.
"It was just one of those very awkward situations for us," explained O'Neill. "First of all the Gardaí were pushing for the 4pm start as opposed to any later time, and we're always conscious of taking that advice. Gardaí don't favour the 6pm starts and it's no secret why.
"But the main issue was with Croke Park, because we'd already agreed to Sunday 17th as our replay date, and it just wouldn't be fair to ask them to accommodate us before that. They'd already altered their pitch maintenance work in that originally it was meant to take three weeks, but they're now going to get it done in two weeks. I know RTÉ accept our position, that we just can't go back to Croke Park looking for anything earlier than Sunday week. We would always accommodate RTÉ whenever we can, and just last Saturday moved the Laois-Longford game to an earlier time to accommodate them.
"But there is a lot of work to be done on the pitch including the laying of 45 tons of sand. It wasn't worth considering bringing the game to another venue because nowhere else had the capacity to accommodate a game of such a high profile."
The delayed Louth-Wexford quarter-final will be the curtain-raiser, and the Leinster Council have also decided against any further adjustment to their football schedule, with the winners of the Dublin-Meath game therefore playing the semi-final just a week later, June 24th, when they meet the winners of Carlow-Offaly. The second semi-final involving Laois and the winners of Louth-Wexford will be played a week later with the Leinster hurling final on July 1st.
Meanwhile, there is still no confirmation when the GAA's Competitions Control Committee (CCC) will meet to look into the incidents involving Meath's Graham Geraghty in Sunday's drawn game. CCC chairman Jimmy Dunne is out of the country, and according to a GAA spokesperson there are no plans for the committee to meet this week.
The Central Hearings Committee, who are tasked with adjudicating on the eight Cork and Clare players involved in the pre-match brawl in the Munster hurling quarter-final on May 26th, are set to begin hearings tomorrow, though most likely dealing with the Cork players first. Their cases are deemed far more urgent as they're out on Sunday week, whereas Clare aren't out again in the qualifiers until June 30th.
Cork defender Ronan Curran yesterday claimed the controversy - and potential loss of Donal Óg Cusack, Seán Óg Ó hAilpín, Diarmuid O'Sullivan and John Gardiner - wasn't disrupting their preparations. "Not really, we are trying not to think about that. I suppose it's a question of preparing yourself on who will be playing on the day to the best of their ability . . . we will have to wait and see what happens. They would be big losses to the team; they are big players for us."
Curran was speaking at yesterday's Opel Gaelic Player of the Month Awards for May with Brian Kavanagh of Longford taking the football honour.
