Ulster Council secretary Danny Murphy remains confident that this weekend's rescheduled Dr McKenna Cup first round games will go ahead as planned. The freezing conditions resulted in the postponement of all inter-county games last weekend, but with temperatures steadily rising, Murphy is optimistic about this weekend's games taking place. "I would be very confident that the games will go ahead. The five-day forecast is for fairly mild conditions and that is expected to continue until next Monday," he said. "The temperature is expected to be around seven or eight degrees on Friday, Saturday and Sunday so we would expect the necessary thaw to have taken place." The Down man confirmed to the Irish News that preliminary pitch inspections had already taken place at the six venues which will host fixtures on Saturday and Sunday. "The general feeling at this time is that things are looking positive. If there is any need for any further pitch inspections, we will do that again on Thursday. "At this minute in time, we don't envisage that we'll need to do that." Tweet

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