It’s not quite back to the traditional third Sunday in September but the All Ireland Football Final has been pushed back to Saturday, September 11th after the GAA last night confirmed the Semi-Final between Kerry and Tyrone would now take place on Saturday, August 28th and the final two weeks later.
The statement outlining the change, 24 hours after Tyrone said they would not be able to field a team on the previous weekend, was based on “receipt of additional medical information from Tyrone GAA and subsequent deliberations with the relevant parties.”
It probably suits all parties with Mayo given an extra week to come down from the high of beating Dublin on Saturday, Kerry given a competitive game ahead of the final and Tyrone given a chance to compete.
The decision also ensures that RTÉ and Sky Sports maintain the agreed number of matches they are able to bring to an audience that would figure in the high hundred’s of thousands and the Football Championship sponsors AIB, SuperValu and eir also get a full complement of games at the business end of a shortened season.
The only ones who will be impacted in a negative sense are the Camogie Association whose Final will now have to share the week of build-up coverage with the men’s Football, Something that has befallen Ladies Football in each of the last two seasons.
The Ladies Football Final will have top billing in the Gaelic Games world now, barring the Men’s Hurling Final next weekend going to a replay.
Looking back then in the cold light of morning it was clearly the right decision to give Tyrone the extra seven days to recover, though there remains a degree of unease about the circumstances in which the outbreak took hold so quickly across the Tyrone Camp, as well as their referencing the UK recommended 17 days before a return to full sporting exercise as opposed to the Republic of Ireland advice being ten days or seven days without symptoms.
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