THE schedule of live broadcasts for next summer's championship has neared completion with last night's meeting between the GAA's provincial councils - and RTE in the Berkeley Court hotel in Dublin.
With the dates for both football and hurling now finalised, the selection of matches looks fairly straight forward but the final decision requires RTE to take away the provinces proposal and either accept or amend it before the proposed timetable is approved by the GAA's Management Committee.
There are also other peripheral issues to be considered, such as the Ulster Council's subsidiary deal with UTV and the question of compensation to the provinces for the loss of revenue on both the televised match and any others taking place elsewhere at the same time.
Given the generally positive reaction to last summer's broadcasts, financial issues are considered unlikely to hold up agreement. If the live matches are to begin on the same weekend as last year, the final schedule won't differ substantially from the following.
May 18th - Ulster SF preliminary round, Down v Tyrone.
May 25th - Connacht SF first round, Galway v Mayo.
June 1st - None of the fixtures, all football, on this date have wide appeal (CarlowLouth, Fermanagh Cavan, Limerick/Tipperary Waterford, London Leitrim).
A possibility might be to move back the Munster hurling semi finals by a week which would allow the likely Clare Cork match to go ahead on this date with Tipperary Limerick (or Waterford) on June 8th. This would be particularly useful as the Tipperary Limerick/ Waterford match clashes with Dublin Meath in Leinster football on June 15th.
June 8th - Munster SH semi final, Clare (who must qualify against Kerry) v Cork.
June 15th - Leinster SF first round, Meath v Dublin.
June 22nd - Leinster SH semi-final, Offaly (or Laois or Meath) v Wexford.
June 29th - Ulster SF semifinal, Monaghan or Derry v Down or Tyrone or Armagh.
July 6th - Munster hurling final.
July 13th - Leinster hurling final.
July 20th - Munster and Ulster football finals. On occasion last year RTE broadcast two matches (Leinster hurling final and Munster hurling final replay) or at least part of a second match (Leinster and Ulster football finals). This was largely successful and may be repeated.
July 27th - Hurling quarter finals. These two matches are new additions to the schedule and will involve the beaten Munster and Leinster finalists.
August 3rd - Leinster and Connacht football finals.
The rest of August and September will be taken up with the All Ireland series next year's hurling semi finals will be played on separate dates. The All Ireland hurling and football finals have been moved back a week, to September 14th and 28th, respectively.
