Waterford football manager John Kiely has slammed Croke Park's attitude to weaker counties after his team's Tommy Murphy Cup game against Wicklow was fixed for the same date as the hurlers' All-Ireland qualifier. The clash in fixtures means Kiely will be without dual players Gary Hurney, Brian Wall and Liam Lawlor for the meeting with the Garden County on July 19, and he has prompted him to accuse the GAA authorities of "paying lip service" to the development of football in the weaker counties. "If they had put the game back by 24 hours we would probably have had those three lads back which is an awful difference to us," Kiely said. "But they won't put it back. They're only paying lip service to helping football in weaker counties. And I know the Laois hurlers have the same problem. They'd have more players available too if it did not clash with their football qualifier." To compound matters, Kiely currently has something of an injury crisis on his hands and expects to be without the majority of the team that lined out against Clare in the Munster SFC for the Tommy Murphy Cup opener. Tweet

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