Mayo GAA today published details of its club fixture schedule for this summer, following the GAA’s return to play at the end of July as the Covid-19 restrictions continue to be eased.
Details of the full fixtures schedule published today by Mayo GAA are here. The action is set to get going on 31st July and, on the football side, the finals of the Senior, Intermediate and Junior Championships have been fixed for the weekend of 18th – 20th September. There’s no change to the already published format for these competitions, which comprise an initial group stage followed by knockout matches at the business end.
It has also been reported today by RTÉ (here) that the GAA is considering announcing its revised inter-county Championship schedule for 2020 earlier than expected. This report by Damian Lawlor states that the GAA could move ahead and publish their plans once the Government reveals Phase 3 of the reopening roadmap on 29th June.
That piece, by the way, also states that the GAA is still mulling over the completion of this year’s National Leagues, in particular those games that will decide promotion and relegation. By the sounds of it, then, we’re not out of the woods on that one yet. For us, indeed, the resumption of inter-county action could well mean the completion – for good or ill – of our dogfight to avoid the drop from Division One.
That will be a really exiting club championship – if your club is on a roll then it makes for tremendous excitement heading off in support every weekend for 6/7 weeks (and on the other hand the pain is contained if your team is struggling). Restarting the league in October is a daft idea. Two rounds yet to get it I thin and that will bring us into November before starting championships. Yes the crowds would be smallish for those league games bar a certain few matches which might be one positive but I think it would drain the appetite to engage the public with such a late start date to championship. However by getting two rounds of the hurling and football championship into October, it will generate the momentum from the counties remaining standing to get on board for the November action.
As far as the two remaining league games are concerned, it should be easy enough to tag them in prior to the 7 rounds of next years league. I had presumed that the provisional setup would remain which for Connaught would require say 4 weekends to get done and that would facilitate a weekend free between semis and finals. Leinster with most counties could be done in 5 weekends allowing for one free weekend…will be interesting to see what is decided by fixtures office.
New podcast episode just up now!
This is not going to happen – china is commencing second lockdown and we will be facing the same in sept/october