The finalised calendar of championship matches for next summer's football and hurling championships confirms the blank date in the schedule on May 21st. This is the day set aside as a day of prayer for the millennium by the Roman Catholic bishops. The GAA's Central Council agreed earlier this year to schedule no matches on that particular Sunday.
Accordingly, the weekend's only championship fixtures, the final round of Leinster preliminary pool football matches, are scheduled for Saturday the 20th while the four provincial councils have had to plan their championships around the vacant date.
It will be a while yet before the GAA and RTE agree on the summer's schedule of live broadcasts, but a glance at the collated fixtures gives fairly strong hints as to what might be expected. This year saw the live televising of National League finals for the first time. The millennium finals for football are likely to fixed for May 7th, and the following week for the hurling.
Otherwise, the main interest is likely to focus on the last Sunday of the month when Waterford take on Tipperary in the Munster hurling championship. The counties met in June 1998 in Cork and Waterford were victorious on the way to an All-Ireland semi-final.
Although it turned out to be an excellent match, it wasn't shown live because it clashed with the Dublin-Kildare encounter at Croke Park - which turned out to be a truly dreadful afternoon's football. Without such an obvious counter-attraction, the Munster hurling match is likely to be pencilled in to the television schedule.
The following week, June 4th, the Munster hurling clash will, however, probably lose out to Leinster football. Both All-Ireland champions are likely to be in action with Cork virtual certainties to play Limerick whereas Meath are drawn against Offaly in a repeat of this year's provincial semi-final. The football fixture looks the better bet for television coverage.
Seven days later, the Munster hurling semi-final between Clare and either Waterford or Tipperary is the outstanding fixture on the list. Clare and Tipp had two memorable encounters last June whereas in the provincial final of 1998, Clare were also taken to a replay by Waterford.
June 18th sees a clash between the Leinster hurling semi-finals and the latest edition of Munster football's main rivalry, between Cork and Kerry. Normally the Offaly-Wexford hurling match would be a likely television match but after last summer's one-sided encounter, it mightn't be as attractive a broadcast as the football.
Alternatively, both matches could be shown if the throw-in times were staggered - a procedure used to show the provincial football finals which double up on the third and fifth Sundays of July.
The last Sunday in June is complicated by the unknown outcome of a number of earlier rounds. Meath and Kildare would be favourites to meet in the Leinster semi-final, although Louth have an excellent record against the 1998 All-Ireland finalists whom they have beaten in both their championship meetings this decade.
Meath, however, have lost to Offaly only once over the same period - the Leinster final of 1997 - whereas they have recorded four comfortable wins.
The schedule might also offer the chance of an Ulster match as the meeting between defending champions Armagh or Tyrone and - perhaps - Donegal would also be an attractive fixture.
The most marketable Connacht tie appears to be the potential meeting between Mayo and Galway on July 9th. The defending champions have first to overcome Sligo - something they struggled to do in the provincial final of two years ago - but if they do and Galway presumably beat New York, the resulting semi-final may well press its claims for coverage on a staggered basis with the Leinster hurling final on the same day.
Thereafter, the television schedule is straightforward with all the big matches going out live until the end of the championship.
