The remaining three-quarters of next year's All-Ireland championship draw won't be known until November 11th, about a month later than usual, following yesterday's agreement between the Leinster, Munster and Connacht councils.
After the Ulster Council broke from tradition and staged their own draw on BBC last Thursday, the remaining three provinces were left to negotiate a further deal with RTÉ to get the best exposure for their draw.
The draw will take place during a live broadcast on Friday evening, November 11th, and will be staged in Killarney in advance of the inaugural National Club Forum, which takes place in the Kerry town the following day.
Representatives of the three councils had stated their preference to stick together, rather than follow Ulster's example and go it alone. However, the November date was the earliest they could agree on because of the International Rules tour to Australia, and then the interprovincial hurling final in Boston on November 6th.
"It does leave it a little tight in terms of getting the dates into the annual diary and things like that," said Munster Council secretary Simon Moroney. "But we still felt that was the best option open to us at this stage, with various officials being away on the International Rules tour and then the interprovincial final.
"It's probably as late as it's ever been, at least in my experience, but you have to remember as well that we're talking about a competition that doesn't get under way until next May. So there is still time to work on the finer details."
The finer details - such as dates and venues - are normally decided before the end of November to be submitted to Croke Park for inclusion in the GAA calendar. Each council is likely to meet the week after the draw to complete that process. One of the more pressing issues will be for Leinster, who must decide on the amount of games they want to fix for Croke Park. Last year they staged most of the games at GAA headquarters.
Ironically, the Ulster football championship is traditionally the most straightforward, as each game takes place on successive Sundays, with the first drawn team entitled to a home venue.
Croke Park yesterday confirmed the throw-in times for Sunday's semi-finals of the interprovincial hurling competition. Connacht will play Leinster at Loughrea with a 1.45pm start, and Munster will play Ulster at Casement Park at 2.30pm. Extra time will be played in both games if necessary.
Sunday also sees the winners of the Christy Ring Cup (Westmeath) and the Tommy Murphy Cup (Tipperary) taking on New York in both codes, the reward for capturing the secondary competitions. The hurling game has a 2pm start (local time) at Gaelic Park, and will be for the Eddie Burke Cup, with the football starting at 3.40pm, with the prize being the Irish Diaspora Perpetual Trophy.
On the club scene, the Kerry county football final has been postponed until November 13th to allow for the semi-final replay between Dr Crokes and Laune Rangers. The clubs drew 1-10 each last Saturday, but with Crokes' Colm Cooper and Eoin Brosnan subsequently joining the Irish International Rules tour to Australia, the replay won't take place until November 6th.
There is still plenty of time for the Kerry champions to make their date in the Munster club championship, as their semi-final date with the winners of the Clare or Limerick champions is scheduled for November 27th.
The other Kerry semi-final this weekend sees Maurice Fitzgerald's South Kerry take on West Kerry.
Errigal Ciaráand Omagh meet under the Carrickmore floodlights tonight in the Tyrone senior football championship replay. The sides finished 0-12 each after extra-time last weekend. With the final against defending champions Carrickmore due for next Sunday, the winners of tonight's tie are facing a punishing schedule of three championship games in the space of eight days.
Omagh hope to have Joe McMahon back for his first start since the preliminary round over three months ago. McMahon, troubled by a calf injury, came on as a substitute in Saturday's drawn game.
