Westmeath GAA steps up ‘project restart’ for club action

Pictured above: Caulry’s Kevin Maguire tries to get past Tang’s Jason Coughlan during last year’s Westmeath IFC semi-final replay in Athlone. Club fixtures are set to resume at the end of July. Photo: Ann Hennessy.

Westmeath GAA is stepping up its plans to get club fixtures organised by the end of July.

The county’s management committee will be having a Zoom meeting tomorrow (Saturday) to discuss how to run its adult and underage competitions this year.

Towards the end of last week, the GAA at national level unveiled its roadmap for getting back to playing action in the wake of the Covid-19 shutdown.

From June 29, teams can recommence non-contact training in groups of ten with two coaches and, from July 20, contact training can resume. This will allow clubs to prepare for the planned return of fixtures on Friday, July 31.

Under this plan, club competitions are to continue until Sunday, October 11. Inter-county training will not resume until September 14 - with the resumption of inter-county competitions pencilled in for Saturday, October 17 at the earliest.

Damien Maher, assistant secretary of Westmeath County Board, is acutely aware of the challenges he and his colleagues face in trying to configure this year’s club championships.

“A timeframe of ten or eleven weeks is very tight, especially as we’re a dual county with football and hurling to consider,” Maher told the Westmeath Independent.

Maher concedes that there is “a strong chance” that the club championships will be organised in a radically different format this year.

“Our operations manager Patrick Doherty has been putting a lot of work into it, and we’re lucky to have an operations manager at the moment. We’re looking at a number of ideas and we’ll be doing some brainstorming on Saturday to see what will work best in Westmeath. Clubs will have to be realistic about what is possible this year,” Maher continued.

It’s understood that Westmeath GAA officials will try to play league games before the championships get underway. But there is a possibility that the leagues will be regionalised rather than played on an all-county basis as they have been for several years. The fact that that leagues have already started is a complicating factor in this regard.

In terms of competitions such as the Westmeath senior and intermediate football championships, a format of four groups of three teams is seen as a possible option.

There is an understandable view that a round robin format based on five group games is not feasible this year. But some club representatives might prefer a straight knockout with one ‘back door’ round for teams defeated in the opening round.

“The clubs will ultimately decide as whatever decisions are made will have to be approved at a county committee meeting. I’d say clubs will be willing to co-operate with whatever proposals we put forward,” said Maher.

In terms of underage activity, Damien points out that Coiste na nÓg chairman Alan Leech (Killucan) and secretary Kevin Jordan (Southern Gaels) have had some preliminary discussions.

Maher, who is a referee himself, said undue pressure won’t be placed on older referees who are unwilling to officiate this year due to health concerns.

Meanwhile, the GAA’s hugely popular summer camps, known as Cúl Camps, are expected to go ahead, but the details have still to be confirmed.

“We don’t know about Cúl Camps for sure yet but there is a lot of positivity about them and it looks like they will go ahead. They’re held outdoor in open spaces and you can modify games for smaller groups. Some venues have more than one pitch and that would be an advantage in terms of dealing with large numbers,” Maher added.