Meath and Antrim hurlers to meet again at Croke Park

The Christy Ring Cup, named after the late famed Cloyne legend, came into existence in 2005. The winner of this second tier competition gets promoted to the All-Ireland senior hurling championship.

Meath took home the Ring cup last Saturday following a 2-18 to 1-20 victory over Antrim despite an overwhelming number of journalists, along with the Antrim management, believing the contest finished in a 2-17 to 1-20 draw.

Afterwards, the GAA communications department stated the referee, John O’Brien from Tipperary, was “satisfied with the match report”.

Confusion initially arose among the match officials, and was not resolved correctly, when Antrim’s Niall McKenna 63rd minute point was not registered on the scoreboard.

“I kept saying to Frankie Quinn (Antrim secretary), ‘There’s a score missing, there’s a score missing,’ it needs to be sorted out,” said Antrim manager Dominic McKinley on Saturday. “I was at the linesman too. He said, ‘I don’t know’. I said, ‘There’s a score missing’.

“I kept saying to Gary O’Kane (Antrim selector) beside me, ‘We’re three up instead of two, we’re three up’. But he was saying, ‘No, it’s only two on the board’. I said, ‘No, it’s three.’ . . .”

O’Kane stated: “If this had been the Leinster or Munster hurling final or the All-Ireland final, then the situation which evolved would not have happened. Do you mean to tell me that there was not a referee’s assessor in the stand? And do you think for one minute the likes of Kilkenny would have been allowed to go up, take delivery of the cup, go home and celebrate and then be told to come back a few days later for a replay? Not a chance.

“You have a referee, two linesmen, four umpires, a fourth official seated on the touchline. I ask you, surely to God, eight folk are enough to prevent untoward things happening? . . While human error is understandable . . . I think there was inept handling in this case.”

Despite the media and Antrim management highlighting the error, James Toner, the Meath captain, was allowed climb the steps of the Hogan stand to collect the cup.

O’Brien subsequently accepted, in the match report, that an error did in fact occur.

On Tuesday Meath PRO Martin O’Halloran told RTÉ: “At this stage you would have to accept that mistakes were made. Who made it?

“Was it technology? Was it human error? But there is no blame game here. We have no issue with these things. We are all human. We played the game in the best sporting way. We left Croke Park winners and that’s the way we felt we were. Don’t forget this result is absolutely crucial to the development of Meath hurling.”

The GAA’s central competitions control committee (CCCC), under the chairmanship of George Cartwright (Cavan), met on Tuesday and declared a replay would take place this Saturday in Newry.

Embarrassing situation

But Meath have a full round of club hurling fixtures and, seemingly, they were not adequately consulted. Their county delegates met Wednesday night and agreed to replay the game but not until June 18th.

The CCCC – finally forced into an unscheduled emergency meeting to address an increasingly embarrassing situation – met yesterday morning before releasing the following statement at 12.40pm: “Given the unique circumstances involved, the CCCC agreed to postpone the game. It will now take place on Saturday, June 25th in Croke Park at 5pm.”

That about covers this debacle. Only existing problem, according to the Meath Chronicle, is the whereabouts of Christy Ring: "Reports within the county suggesting that in the midst of Meath hurlers' victory celebrations the whereabouts of the pot has become unclear with various sightings reported around the county. One of the last sightings was in Stoney Burke's in Longwood, while another pic saw it located at the Hill of Down."