'Rain' of discontent

Wet weather plays havoc with sporting programme

It's said that every cloud has a silver lining, but the clouds that have been dominating the skies over the past number of months have led to high levels of rainfall across the county, something that is presenting a major challenge when it comes to outdoor games.

Right across the board there has been a big impact, with local GAA and soccer games facing the biggest challenges to get their fixtures played. While summer time has officially began, the long evenings have not brought any lengthy dry spells and the various organisations are playing catch-up. Others have lost events that they cannot replace and in the case of the golf club in Mullingar, continuous wet weather means less people are attending the course which is having an economic impact in terms of a drop in income for their shop and restaurant.

Peter Collins, secretary of Westmeath’s Coiste na nÓg, said they have been severely impacted by the recent wet weather. With a significant fixtures programme to plan, they have had to cancel a number of games and will be facing a renewed challenge to get their league programme back on track.

“All clubs are struggling with the current wet spell. The Downs are gone, as are Mullingar Shamrocks and St Loman’s Mullingar, which are three big clubs in the town area. It’s a similar story down the south of the county,” he said.

“In general, all in clubs are in the same boat. Collinstown and Clonkill have been managing really well and Cullion got a fixture played on Wednesday evening, which was some achievement given the weather we had.

“Castletown Geoghegan, Moate All Whites, Athlone, Delvin, St Oliver Plunkett’s, Tyrrellspass, Kilbeggan Shamrocks, Raharney, St Mary’s, Rochfortbridge, Ballinagore have all been impacted.”

The hurling fixtures were badly hit in the last week.

“Clubs are in a difficult situation and they are being upfront with us. We appreciate that if they destroy their pitch, they won’t have it for a period of time, which would give us another headache,” he said.

Fortune favours Féile

Mr Collins was relieved to get the Féile competitions completed, with games taking place around the county on the Saturday of storm Kathleen.

“That was some achievement, in fairness to all clubs,” he said.

“We were lucky because if we didn't get the Féile competition played, we could have been faced with not having one at all. We had all clubs in action on the Saturday and they were travelling to other venues. It was great for the younger players who then got an opportunity to play the finals in TEG Cusack Park. There were three finals, Division 1, 2 and 3 in headquarters on the Sunday and it was great for them all, but I know Milltownpass and Milltown were both particularly delighted to get the chance to play in there.”

Mr Collins said it‘s a tribute to the ground staff of TEG Cusack Park that they got the opportunity to play the finals on a very wet weekend and he thanked the county committee for their support.

“Brendan Shaw and Frank Mescall have given us great support as always,” he said, acknowledging also the vital role the referees played.

"The referees have been a great help and play such a crucial role. Several referees stepped in at the last minute to do Féile games and it was great to have such support. These officials also had adult games to cover on the weekend," he remarked.

Paul Heduan of Milltown thanked all who made the Féile finals possible.

"Sincere thanks to the volunteers, staff and officials at Westmeath GAA who week in, week out, give their time, effort and commitment to delivering meaningful competitions and games that gives young players the opportunity to express themselves in a healthy, safe and supported environment. Well done to all the club mentors, parents and supporters who came along and of course the young players who competed fiercely, but fairly, in a great game of football. Go néirí an tádh libh go leir," he wrote.

The underage fixtures are now beginning to come thick and fast as summer time gets up and running.

“We would have around 20 fixtures for hurling and double that for football on alternate weeks. Only 10% of the games are being played at the minute and our CCC (competitions control committee) have to look at how we can make up the lost ground,” said Mr Collins.

“We will be able to get the backlog of games resolved, I’m sure, as the clubs are very much aware of the challenge we have and the time constraints in getting the leagues finished.”

Adult matches are also hit, with 37 back games to be played before the start of championship season in June.

Club views

March was one of the wettest in the history of the state with rainfall up between 150% and 190% on long-term averages across weather stations in the midlands.

Waterlogged pitches and flooded dugouts are the result and have been forcing teams to get creative, with many placing an emphasis on indoor training if they don’t have access to an all-weather pitch.

GAA league fixtures at all levels are being cancelled right across the county and the number of games that need to be rescheduled is continuing to pile up with no end in sight.

Forecaster Cathal Nolan from Ireland’s Weather Channel said the cancellation of fixtures comes as no surprise to him.

“March was one of the wettest we’ve ever had, especially in the midlands where rainfall came in between 150%-190% above average,” he told the Westmeath Examiner.

“Even into the start of April rainfalls have been around 150% of their average and this is coming off the back of what has essentially been nine months of above-average rainfall.

“It has been an exceptionally wet period of weather going back to the end of June, the start of July last year, and continuing up to the present moment.”

Mr Nolan said he is not surprised to see so many GAA fixtures cancelled.

“There is a significant number of pitches at the moment that are unavailable thanks to all this rain,” he said.

“The only fixtures really going ahead are inter-county games which bring up the issue of the split season and whether we are having too many games on at once.

“With this split season, we will have games throughout the year so we will need to look at getting greater training facilities – so all-weather pitches.”

Mr Nolan said the rainfall we are currently seeing is thanks to “a combination of climate change and long-term natural weather variability”.

He said to expect a period of dry weather beginning on Tuesday, April 15, that will last for around ten days “as high pressure settles over the country”.

Raharney GAA

Raharney senior hurling manager John Shaw said the clubs’ pitches have seen an “incredible” amount of rain this year leaving them unplayable for periods.

“Our pitches have been closed on and off since we started back so it’s hard to get a proper run at it and, unfortunately, we don’t have an all-weather pitch out here.

“It’s been a nightmare; I’m involved with Westmeath u20 hurlers as well and 90% of our training has been done on astro since the new year.

“We’ve had very little game time on grass because of the rain.”

Mr Shaw said more astro pitch capacity is needed across the county.

“I don’t know what we’re going to do; we’re going to have to build more astro pitches for GAA clubs in the county,” he said.

“That’s the way it looks like it’s going as the last two years have been a disaster.

“If you’re playing games in the springtime, we’re definitely going to have to look at building more quality, full-sized astro pitches.

“Everybody needs astro space now and there’s just not enough of it.”

The rescheduling of fixtures is also a pain to the Raharney manager.

“It’s a pity because in the first round of the league, we were supposed to play Ringtown at home on St Patrick’s Day weekend and it was cancelled – every game was called off in the league that weekend.

That puts additional pressure on later in the year because fixtures have to be replayed.

“We’re trying to reschedule these games but cancellations are still piling up.”

Mr Shaw said Raharney GAA are limiting their activity on the pitch so far this season for fear of “doing permanent damage to it”.

The Downs GAA

Downs GAA chairperson Aiden Maguire said their pitches have also been on lockdown thanks to excessive rain.

“We had to close our pitch three weeks ago for four or five days,” he said.

“We opened them after that for both adult and juvenile fixtures that were starting but they’re closed again now as a result of the very heavy rain.

“What we have been doing is trying to rotate our pitches between the ladies, men’s and juvenile teams but fixtures will soon start piling up - there is fierce demand on pitch space.”

Mr Maguire said the club have been forced to get creative.

“We’re out training wherever we can on local astro turf pitches, but everyone is looking for them at the same time,” he said.

“Mullingar Rugby Club have facilitated us and Raharney United has accommodated our ladies on a couple of occasions with their astro – fair play to them.

“I’ve never seen rain like this before, it’s never been this bad.

“We’ve never had to close pitches like this in the past; maybe for a few days, but this is our second closure and we are experiencing unprecedented levels of rainfall and water-logging.”

Shandonagh GAA

Shandonagh GAA PRO Rebecca Maguire “everything was cancelled” at their grounds last week.

“We’re having a lot of trouble at the moment and have pitch inspections every two days,” she said.

“People want to get out training but there’s no way we can get everybody out or the pitch will be destroyed for the foreseeable – that’s a big concern.

“The ladies’ team at the minute, Cullion GAA have been kind enough to give us the use of their all-weather pitch and the men’s teams have been using Mullingar Rugby Club.”

Ms Maguire said their pitch “is very slippery” and needs to be protected.

“We don’t want to damage the pitch for the long term because it will get a lot of use up through to October, so that’s what our focus is on at the moment,” she said.

“The annoying this is we’ve had great work done out here recently on our grounds so we have a main pitch, a new pitch and a training pitch as well – but we can’t use them.

“It’s great that at least we have a walking track so that people can still meet up to get out and exercise together.”

Ballinagore GAA

Ballinagore GAA PRO Paul Seery said they’ve been forced to cancel a number of matches due to rain.

“We were supposed to play an ACFL division 5 match on Monday (April 8) that was rained off and a minor match on Tuesday (April 9) rained off,” he said.

“We’ve had two adult matches fall victim to this; our junior team were supposed to play Mullingar Shamrocks but it was cancelled back in early March, as well as our game against St Paul’s GFC.

“Our pitch is normally pretty good; the county minors have been using it as a sort of base this year and it’s seen a lot of activity – but it’s gone very soft now.

“We’ve had to train in the gym quite a bit more this year than we would have other years.”

Mr Seery said he hadn’t seen anything like this rain before.

“Every year you would have evenings you wouldn’t be able to train but it’s going on a lot longer this year,” he said.

“It wouldn’t have been strange in previous years to have a league match or two league matches postponed in February or March but to not be able to play a match in April is a bit unusual.”

Ballycomoyle GAA

Ballycomoyle GAA PRO Gerry Farrelly said his club were also limiting pitch time.

“There is an awful lot of rain after falling lately so we’re not putting a lot of use on the pitch and, thankfully, it held up for a men’s game over the weekend,” he said.

“Some of our teams have been borrowing the all-weather pitch at Ringtown for training which has helped us in minding our pitch.

“We might have one dry day and it’s gone the next; our u14s were supposed to be out last week but that was cancelled – we’re generally lucky not to have too many fixtures on at the moment.”