GAA/News: The decision of the GAA to take its chances against an international soccer international rather than the Six Nations rugby clash with England may not have been originally intended, but Croke Park is happy to stick with the decision.
Although soccer internationals generally attract bigger television audiences than their rugby equivalents, the amount of hype surrounding the England match - assuming Ireland keep Grand Slam ambitions alive by winning in Wales next week - will make it the big sporting event of the last weekend in March.
The GAA's Games Administration Committee has avoided a clash with the Ireland-England rugby international by bringing forward all matches in round five of the National Hurling League.
The fixtures were scheduled for Sunday fortnight, but at Wednesday night's GAC meeting it was decided to play the entire programme on Saturday, March 29th.
This means that there will be a clash with the Republic of Ireland's Euro '04 qualifier against Georgia. As this is an away match it will be shown on terrestrial television, RTÉ, at 3 p.m., the same time as the NHL fixtures and will be new manager Brian Kerr's first competitive match in charge.
"It was decided very quickly," according to GAC chair, Paraic Duffy. "Everyone accepted that there shouldn't be a clash.
"First it was considered whether we could change the starting times on Sunday, but the consensus was that people wouldn't travel with the rugby match on so the obvious solution was to bring the games forward by 24 hours."
The change makes sense for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the attendance at last Saturday's Tipperary-Limerick NHL fixture was poor and the clash with the Ireland-France Six Nations was partly blamed.
Secondly, even though there is now a conflict with the soccer international, the programme of matches is in the NHL so it means that the centre of gravity of the day's fixtures is in Munster where the hurling-rugby interface is most obvious.
The other GAC business saw Waterford hurler John Mullane suspended for 12 weeks. This case was an unusual one for the GAC. It arose from an under-21 club challenge between De La Salle of Waterford and Kilkenny's Mullinavat.
Mullane - who denied that his actions were deliberate - was involved in an incident as a result of which an opponent lost a testicle. As the match was a cross-province fixture, the national GAC was the appropriate forum to hear the case.
In the absence of neutral evidence (even the match officials weren't neutral) the one established fact was that a blow was struck.
As a result of the suspension, which takes effect from last Sunday March 9th, the Waterford player misses the rest of the NHL campaign but will be available just in time for the probable championship meeting with Limerick on June 1st - providing Waterford defeat Kerry.
Meanwhile, Sligo County Board has decided to offer Kildare a rematch of their NFL Division One B game if the latter's appeal against the deduction of two league points fails.
Kildare beat Sligo by a point at Markievicz Park last month, but the GAC awarded the points to Sligo after their county board wrote to the GAC informing them that Kildare had handed an incomplete team list to the referee.
TYRONE (SF v Monaghan): J Devine; R McMenamin, C McGinley, M McGee; C Holmes, S McCallan, B Robinson; K Hughes, P Loughran; M Coleman, S Mulgrew, G Cavlan; M Harte, O Mulligan, E McGinley
DOWN (SH v Kildare): G Clarke; L Clarke, S Murray, E Dorrian; M Pucci, G Savage, M Braniff; S Wilson, G Adair; G McGrattan, P Braniff, E Trainor; M Coulter (jnr), G Johnston, S Clarke. Subs: R Murray, A Dynes, D McCusker, E Clarke, F Murray, T McMahon, J Doherty, JH Hughes, T Coulter.
