Dublin club championship delays loom

NEWS ROUND-UP:ALL-IRELAND champions Dublin may be enjoying an eight-week hiatus between their league climax and championship opener but they're already in danger of falling behind on their club championship fixtures.

With the county under-21 footballers progressing to the All-Ireland final against Roscommon, set for Sunday week, May 6th, in Tullamore, the opening round of the Dublin senior club football championship has been postponed for the second time, and will now take place from May 16-20th.

As a result, the Dublin County Board will look to play some club games during Dublin’s championship campaign, in what would be a break from tradition.

“Once the result of the under-21s was known our CCCC made that call,” explained Dublin county board chairman Andy Kettle.

“It does put us under some pressure, but our hope is clubs and players and county management will facilitate playing a couple of rounds during the course of the Leinster championship.

“Normally that wouldn’t be the case. Historically we would have kept that period as free as possible. It depends, really.

“ Obviously we’d much prefer to go the straight route through Leinster, but if we do end up in the back door route then definitely we’ll have to look again at the scheduling of club games, and how we’re going to fit them in.”

Last year Dublin very nearly missed their date in the Leinster club football championship as their All-Ireland success brought about a severe backlog of fixtures in their club championship. They eventually secured an extension from the Leinster Council, and Kettle admitted that postponing games at this early stage of the season is far from ideal.

“No panic yet, but in fairness we did use up all our credits with the Leinster Council last year. They were very good to us, afforded us as much time as possible. But we couldn’t be relying on that same goodwill this year.

“In fairness, too, I think the very tight schedule of games possibly cost St Brigid’s in the Leinster club final. I think it worked to their advantage for a while but eventually caught up with them.”

It was agreed that after Dublin lost their concluding league game to Cork, 1-12 to 0-12, back on April 8th, they would take a three-week break from collective training, leaving them with a five-week build-up to the championship, which begins for them on June 3rd against the winners of Westmeath and Louth in Croke Park.

Meanwhile, Tom Coffey took charge of his first training session as interim Offaly football manager last night, acutely aware of the difficult task at hand in turning their fortunes around in the short term, particularly with their championship date against Kildare now looming.

For that reason Coffey will be an interested observer at Kildare’s Division Two showdown against Tyrone in Croke Park on Sunday, as Offaly will provide Kildare’s next opponents on June 16th in the Leinster quarter-final, set for Portlaoise.