KERRY forward Maurice Fitzgerald, who took a knock in National Football league match with Tyrone in is doubtful for weekend's match with Laois. He twisted his knee and consequent swelling prevented him going to work yesterday.
The incident occurred after the hit his knee off the ground manager Paudi O Se felt that match might have been called but for the distance between the counties. He said the match wouldn't have gone ahead had it Cork and Kerry in Killarney. The pitch, he said, was "like's concrete".
He was, however, fairly pleased, to gain a point from the trip and bring Kerry's total from three matches in Ulster to five out of six - an achievement curiously at odds with their unimpressive home form. Ironically, during O Se's playing when Kerry were perennial champions, they frequently found it impossible to get out of Ulster with a decent result.
These are busy times for O Se on a number of other fronts. He has been preparing the Munster Railway Cup football team since the turn of the year and has been particularly inconvenienced by the forced postponement of the semi finals because of the recent snow and the refixed date of February 18th.
He and his club, Gaelteacht, are organising the Paidi O Se football tournament for the same weekend but his views on the unsuitability of the Railway Cup date are unconnected with that personal difficulty.
"Leave that out of it. There's also the club championship, a full programme in the hurling League, a load of Sigerson Cup matches the day before and the McGrath Cup. I think what Croke Park have done with the Railway Cup is just getting it out of the way because it will lose out on publicity. I don't know why it couldn't be played in March. There's hardly any football matches fixed for the month."
He has a point. The regulation matches in the League will be concluded on February 25th, apart from the final Division Four programme. This leaves nothing but play offs to occupy the rest of the month: by my reckoning there were three play off matches required in the four divisions of last year's League.
Meanwhile, details of this year's Fitzgibbon Cup hurling competition for third level colleges were announced yesterday at Croke Park's corporate facilities in the new Cusack Stand. The finals tournament will be hosted by University College Dublin for the first time since 1989. Bus Eireann also announced that they will renew their sponsorship of the event for the fourth year running.
Television coverage of the competition has also been agreed as part of a wider deal between RTE and the GAA. In the past a highlights programme has been broadcast on the Saturday afternoon but the sponsors had to fund the broadcast.
Fourteen teams will take part in this year's competition - 12 since, last weekend's preliminary rounds saw Trinity and Cork RTC walk the plank - and the finals take place on March 9th and 10th with the final taking place in the Belfield Bowl.
Jim Langton of the host club remembered their previous Fitzgibbon seven years ago when they put a stop to University College Cork's run in the competition - UCC were the dominant team of the 1980s - only to lose to University of Limerick in the final. "If this year's is as good," he said, "we will have run a very good Fitzgibbon Cup."
He pointed out that UCD was also hosting the Ryan Cup for second division teams and would therefore be catering for eight teams on the weekend. The Kilmacud Crokes club was thanked for its provision of pitches for the weekend.
Ancillary events are also being organised such as under age, indoor hurling and a special debate on Friday 8th which will be held in conjunction with the UCD L and H. The motion before the house will be: "That Croke Park should be used as a National Stadium".
There will also be a function to honour the 1968 UCD team which won the Dublin county championship as well as the Fitzgibbon. UCD's camogie club are also to host the Ashbourne Cup.
