Croke Park has to make motions happen now

Croke Park will now begin the process of taking several of the motions passed by Congress in Derry last weekend “from the theoretical to the practical” – including the introduction of a countdown clock at all championship games, starting in 2014.

Motion 24, also drawn up by the Football Review Committee (FRC), was passed by the necessary two-thirds majority (69%-31%), but like all FCR proposals, will only come into play from 2014.

This clears the way for the introduction of a public clock in all grounds for championship matches, plus a siren, to signal the end of matches.

However, it’s not yet certain how this will work, if it will follow the format used in the women’s game, where the clocks count down.

But it's now up to Croke Park to decide how to best implement the motion."That would be normal procedure, that Central Council would look at the motion in more detail, and take it from the theoretical to the practical," says the GAA's head of games administration and player welfare Feargal McGill.

Rolled out
Under the original FRC proposal, such a clock would be "rolled out thereafter, as practicable", suggesting it may subsequently feature in league and club games.

However, McGill didn’t predict any difficulties, and that most grounds had clocks in place as part of the scoreboards, including Croke Park. “That would be my expectation, that the existing clock, part of the digital display in Croke Park, will be used," he said.

Meanwhile a new publication, GAA Family Silver by former Dublin hurling manager Humphrey Kelleher was launched in Croke Park last night, and charts the history of more than 100 GAA trophies across all of the Association's codes and also including Ladies football and Camogie.

Finally, three of the four teams contesting this evening’s Munster under-21 football semi-finals have named their selections.

Cork (U21F v Limerick): D Hanrahan; B O'Driscoll, C Dorman, A Cronin; TJ Brosnan, D Cahalane, J Wall; T Clancy, I Maguire; A Cadogan, M Sugrue, J O'Rourke; D MacEoin, B Hurley, L Connolly.

Limerick (U21F v Cork): J Brudair; S Cahill, J O'Meara, B McCarthy; P White, I Corbett, S Barrett; D Treacy, P O'Donnell; S Sheahan, M Brosnan, D Frewen; D Neville, F O'Riordan, P Nash.

Tipperary (U21F v Clare): E Comerford; P Dalton, N O'Sullivan, C O'Sullivan; N O'Meara, S Kennedy, D Fitzell; S O'Brien, I Fahey; B Maher, P Quirke, D Leahy; L McGrath, M Quinlivan, S Leahy.