THE GALWAY hurling board hopes its senior county final between Loughrea and All-Ireland champions Portumna will be re-fixed for the week after next in the wake of yesterday’s decision to postpone the fixture from its original date of next Sunday.
“We are hopeful that we can re-arrange it for the Sunday after next,” said hurling board secretary John Fahey.
The reason for yesterday’s announced postponement was that Mullagh, who were defeated by Loughrea in the semi-finals, have yet to decide whether to pursue the matter further after losing the argument before the Galway County Board and on appeal to the provincial council.
“It’s because of the fall-out from the semi-final,” said Fahey. “Mullagh appealed a decision of the Galway County Board to Connacht and lost last Friday in their case relating to the fixing of the game.
“They have the right to appeal that, but they have hearings tomorrow night (Tuesday) in relation to incidents in the semi-final (as a result of which three players face lengthy suspensions for altercations with the referee), so they won’t meet until Wednesday (tomorrow) night to determine what to do. They still reserve the right to appeal.
“We wanted to take away the uncertainty, as Mullagh could take right up until Friday to reach a decision and that would be unfair to Loughrea and Portumna, the two teams, as well as to everybody else. That’s why we put it to bed early.”
The hold-up is not significant in the sense that there is no longer a Connacht club hurling championship and the winners of the final, as automatic provincial representatives, won’t be needed until next February’s All-Ireland semi-finals.
But the uncertainty over their final opponents is an unwelcome disruption for Portumna, who are in the process of pushing to become the first club to win an All-Ireland title in three successive years.
Mullagh’s protest at their semi-final defeat, which came about after a late free was converted by Loughrea, is based on the contention that former hurling board chair Miko Ryan was under suspension when he participated in the fixtures meeting that arranged the county semi-final.
Ryan had been suspended for eight weeks after an incident on the sideline during the Leinster championship semi-final between Galway and Kilkenny in Tullamore last June when he clashed with county selector John Moylan. The suspension was lifted by the provincial council and referred back because of a technical deficiency.
On re-hearing, Ryan was ordered to serve the remaining 16 days of his suspension. That decision was taken on Wednesday, October 7th, but not issued until the following Friday.
According to Ryan, he hadn’t decided whether to undertake an appeal by the time he took part in the next Monday’s fixtures work group meeting.
Mullagh argued that Ryan was suspended when he took part in arranging the semi-final.
An investigation by the Galway County Board into whether its hurling board chair had acted while under suspension – in a separate incident, coincidentally at the Mullagh-Loughrea semi-final – was dropped when Ryan stepped down from the post last Wednesday.
The club has yet to make up its mind about whether to pursue the matter all the way to the Disputes Resolution Authority, but, once it does, the GAA’s independent arbitration tribunal will convene quickly to hear the matter with a view to resolving the matter quickly and allowing the Galway final to proceed.
