A much-discussed early round of the Tyrone club football championships will only take place should Tyrone fail to reach the Allianz Football League Division One final, and the county’s u21’s do not reach the All-Ireland championship final. The draws for the Senior, Intermediate and Junior first round clashes took place at Garvaghey on Tuesday night, to allow clubs time to prepare for the possibility of the opening round of knock-out games taking place before the end of May. Based on the findings of the extensive investigations and discussions undertaken since the end of the 2013 campaign, the county’s Competitions Control Committee (CCC) have devised a number of possible schedules for early season domestic action, depending on the progress of the county senior and u21 sides. Although this schedule does shed some light on possible start dates for clubs, an actual start date for the league, as well as a definite date for the first round of the club championships, remains very much up in the air. Should Tyrone repeat the feat of last season and reach the Division One decider, a distinct possibility given their positive start to the 2014 campaign, and the u21’s fail to reach their national decider, then the All-County League will begin on Friday May 2 with another round of games following hot on their heels on Sunday May 4. If the u21’s are in the All-Ireland final though, the first adult club action would be a starred round of games on Sunday May 11. The earliest which senior club players in the Red Hand county could be in action is Sunday April 13, but that is on the proviso that Tyrone do not reach the National League final. Five is very much the magic number, with the clubs given the assurance that they will not be thrust into first round action with any less than five rounds of league fixtures having been played. Therefore, the only way that the club championships will take place on the last weekend of May is if Mickey Harte’s senior team fail to reach the National League decider, and Fergal Logan’s u21 outfit do not make it through to the All-Ireland u21 final, with the All-Ireland semi-finals set for April 19 (Easter Saturday) and the final fixed for May 2. In that instance, clubs would have played five rounds of the ACL, as well as a starred round, by the time the club championships would get underway over the weekends of May 25 and June 1. It all means that means that in three of the four options put forward relating to club fixtures in April and May, the club championship programme would not commence until the first weekend in September. Even if the Red Hand seniors made what the CCC refer to as an ‘early exit’ and failed to make the All-Ireland quarter-finals, the domestic knock-out competition would still not begin until the weekend of September 7. The fixtures plan shows that the reserve championships will get underway on the weekend of June 27, the finals fixed for August 22, while the club u21 championship will begin on Tuesday June 17, with the semi-finals down for decision on August 12. It also shows that clubs will be expected to play a maximum of four games over the months of June through to October without their county players, with a total of two starred games altogether should Tyrone fail to make the All-Ireland quarter-final. Regardless of Tyrone’s progress, the county senior championship final is fixed for October 19, allowing the Tyrone winners two weeks to prepare for the opening round of the Ulster Club series.
Courtesy of UlsterHerald
