The Offaly hurling final between Birr and St Rynagh's will be the featured game on TG4's new Gaelic games slot on Sunday afternoon. Although most of the county finals will be shown live, this broadcast will be delayed by an hour (broadcast begins at 4.25pm). The game is the pick of a number of attractive local weekend features, including the Cork senior hurling semi-finals, the replay of the Limerick senior hurling final and the Mayo senior football final between Crossmolina and last year's beaten All-Ireland finalists Ballina Stephenites.
Athenry is the venue for the Galway senior hurling semi-finals, where the host club and reigning champions face Ardrahan and Abbey-Duniry, defeated in last year's final, take on Sarsfields. Abbey Duniry were reinstated to the championship having been expelled in the wake of their failure to show-up for their quarter-final against Portumna. This is the second in a series of live broadcasts by the Irish language station and early public reaction has been very pleasing, according to TG4 spokesperson Phadriac O Ciardha.
"We had a lot of positive enthusiasm when the intention to broadcast live games was originally announced and the reaction to the Donegal county final was extremely gratifying. It attracted a lot of interest from Donegal people all over the country and from fans of Gaelic games who just tuned in from interest. We were happy with the original ratings - although the fact that the under-21 hurling final was also shown on the same afternoon would have had an impact - and we hope to build from there," he said yesterday.
TG4 have been televising the club and colleges scene over the past three years and regularly featured delayed broadcasts and midweek highlights. However, the decision to televise the games live has sparked off a new wave of enthusiasm.
"The natural query from counties now is to when their own showpiece is going to be broadcast. I think the games we do show have a broad appeal - Offaly have played very attractive hurling in the All-Ireland campaign over the past few years and there should be a big interest in the local final. But naturally we hope to broadcast from a wide variety of localities over time."
Already, TG4 have pencilled the Wexford hurling final and the Down football final and will also be showing a number of the AIB provincial club championship matches.
Two of the county's heavyweights have again made it through to the Offaly final. Birr last won the championship in 1997 and swept the country in the subsequent All-Ireland club championship, overcoming Athenry in the final.
Joe Errity, who captained the club on that afternoon again lines out alongside the Whelehan trio of Brian, Simon and Barry. Johnny Pilkington completes the line-up of household names, playing at midfield.
Birr are chasing their 15thOffaly championship and have been installed as favourites after cutting an impressive path through a difficult passage of the league phases of the championship by beating Coolderry, last year's champions Seir Kieran, Kilcormac-Killoughey and their opponents on Sunday.
That seven points defeat marks St Rynagh's only slip-up over an otherwise smooth summer. Offaly stars Martin Hanamy and Hubert Rigney form the backbone of the defence while All-Star Michael Duignan is expected to line out at full forward. St Rynagh's have not emerged from the county since 1993 and are hoping to win their 17th title.
Regardless of the outcome, a number of the aforementioned inter-county stars will be joining forces again next weekend to participate with the Eircell All-Star team against All-Ireland champions Cork in the exhibition game in Boston. Meanwhile, the Coiste na nOg branch of the Carlow county board has taken stern action against under-age club Tullow after a referee was attacked by three supporters of the club during an under-16 championship match. The club was fined £2,000 and ordered to concede home advantage in all its under-16 games next season. A further levy of £3,000 can be imposed, depending on the conduct of the club over the next three years.
Meanwhile as expected, Pat Holmes was ratified last night as the new Mayo senior team manager for a three-year term. Micheal Collins, a member of the Mayo '89 team which lost the All-Ireland to Cork, and Tomas Lally, who John Maughan brought in as an advisor on the Mayo forward line, were named as his selectors.
However the Mayo board have reserved the right to approve a third selector at some later stage.
Holmes, a manager of the Ulster Bank in Westport, is a native Moygownagh in north Mayo and was very much involved in Mayo's All-Ireland runs in '96 and '97. He is the holder of five Connacht senior medals, a Connacht under-21 medal and a Hogan Cup medal as well as a Connacht club medal.
