Dingle unhappy with fixture congestion

November 09, 2015

A dejected Gavan Curran and Paul Fitzmaurice after Dingle where beaten by Dr. Crokes in the 2012 Kerry SFC final. INPHO

Dingle manager Paul Fitzmaurice has expressed his frustration with the fixture backlog in Kerry which has led to the county having to nominate Legion to play in the Munster club SFC.

The Killarney club will travel to Pairc Ui Rinn to face Cork champions Nemo Rangers next Sunday in the provincial semi-final after being nominated ahead of Kerry club champions Dingle on the basis that they have progressed further in the county championship, which includes divisional sides.

Confusion had surrounded who would represent the Kingdom in the provincial championship after yesterday's county final between Legion and South Kerry finished all square. It was widely expected that Dingle would be nominated, but it was confirmed this morning that Legion will represent the county instead.

"When you break it down, it was last minute," Fitzmaurice said on Radio Kerry.

"Kerry could have had no representative going through to Munster this year, and that is solely down to fixture congestion.

"You saw it happen with Tipperary having no representative (in Munster last year) and until last night there was no (Kerry) representative. They were waiting on a ruling from Croke Park and apparently Munster Council came back. More power to Legion but it absolutely shows up the fixture congestion in this county."

He added: "When provided with the rule as stated, if a district wins the county championship, the club champions will go ahead to represent the county but if the competition has not yet been completed, the longest standing member in the county championship will represent Kerry. That's what we were provided with last night.

"It's very frustrating, they can blame the Munster final replay (against Cork) and everything, but they had several free weekends in the season where games could have been played.

"There were three weeks between the Munster senior semi-final and final, why could there not have been a round of county championship played a week after the Munster semi-final?

"We went eight weeks there between championship games and after the All-Ireland final, we played senior club championship, round 3 of the county championship and if we progressed we would have went down the line of more games, which is totally unacceptable.

"It has to be addressed. Teams are losing players, in limbo, and it's time to look at the whole set-up."


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