GAELIC GAMES:DUBLIN'S FOOTBALLERS were forced to delay their winter-time experimentations when their game with Westmeath was cancelled not long before throw-in yesterday. The O'Byrne Cup fixture had initially been scheduled for Cusack Park, Mullingar, but was moved to St Loman's Lakepoint Park, when it became clear that Cusack Park would not be playable.
Saturday night brought frost and snow to the area, however, and the result of a somewhat over-optimistic pitch inspection in minus temperatures at nine yesterday morning was to wait and see if the morning would bring a thaw.
It didn’t and the sides were informed the game was off at 1:15pm, but which time most of the travelling Dublin fans were beginning to hit the town.
For many the first knowledge they had of the cancellation was when they encountered the Dublin team bus departing just as they arrived. The game has been refixed for tomorrow night at 8pm at the same venue.
Also off were Offaly v DCU and Meath v UCD, with both games refixed for tomorrow.
Meanwhile, Mickey Harte insists he still wants to win the Dr McKenna Cup, even though it would mean a hectic schedule of four games in the space of two weeks in the lead-up to the National Football League.
Harte put his Tyrone players through a brisk training session on the synthetic pitch at St Ciarán’s High School in Ballygawley yesterday following the postponement of their season opener against Donegal.
The entire first round of the McKenna Cup was called off due to frozen pitches, and will now be played on the weekend of January 22nd/23rd, with the semi-finals and final to follow within seven days.
“I suppose it will be a very packed end of the month now, because the competition will have to be squeezed into a week less than what would have already been a quite tight schedule. But that’s the way, and we’ll all have to adapt, and for those of us who are lucky enough to stay in long enough, we’ll have to deal with that, and hopefully we can be one of those teams that will stay in that bit longer,” said Harte.
“You’d like to win it, and if you were in the business of winning it, you would be preparing well for the league, because we would be getting five games for a start, five competitive games.
“We would be playing against teams who are obviously keen to do well in it as well, because you don’t get to the semi-finals or final of any competition without wanting to do well in them. So that would be answering both requests, to try to win the tournament by all means, and that should be good preparation for the league.
“It must be very disappointing, because I know lots of people were looking forward to the new season starting, and I think there would have been great interest in the McKenna Cup this weekend. But the elements dictate otherwise and we have to live with that.”
The FBD games between Leitrm v Mayo and Roscommon v GMIT were also the victims of the inclement weather.
