*Action from the Junior C final between Bodyke and Scariff. Photograph: Ruth Griffin
JUNIOR B hurlers and footballers should not be involved in knockout championships, club delegates have said.
Clooney/Quin, Wolfe Tones and Newmarket-on-Fergus all submitted proposals before Clare GAA that the Junior B hurling championship be played on a group basis to similar to other adult hurling competitions.
Chairman of Clare GAA, Kieran Keating acknowledged, “the knockout basis has been a bugbear for some teams”.
Running the Junior B competition on a knockout basis was unfair, O’Callaghans Mills delegate Robert Frost believed. “As you know the Junior B hurlers are cutting across nobody, they at least deserve a second chance. It is €1000 for a club to enter a team with insurance costs, they deserve a second chance”.
Ruan’s John O’Sullivan also backed the call to revert to the old format, “it was very cut and dry for the Junior Bs this year,” he commented.
Dermot O’Donnell advised the meeting that Wolfe Tones had a motion on the subject for Congress. The Shannon man stated, “we felt lads were putting in a lot of training only to play one match and get knocked out”.
Flann O’Reilly a regular match official at Junior B level told the meeting that the standard of Junior B hurling has “increased massively”.
Keating told the meeting the matter would be put before the Master Fixtures committee.
