The Offaly county board is furious at the decision to defer this weekend's All-Ireland SHC relegation play-offs. Offaly secretary Martin Boland has accused the Central Competitions Control Committee of changing fixtures "to suit themselves" as confusion continues to reign over Antrim's hurling status. The Faithful County were due to face Antrim in their relegation play-off clash at Parnell Park on Saturday, but the fixture has been postponed after Antrim claimed they have been given a guarantee of a three-year period in the Leinster championship and Liam McCarthy Cup, and are therefore immune from relegation. But Boland has expressed his annoyance with the decision in light of the CCCC's refusal to accommodate Offaly two weeks ago when the county's footballers and hurlers were both in action on the same day. Offaly played Wexford in the first round of the All-Ireland football qualifiers in Wexford Park, while the county's hurlers met Cork in their opening hurling qualifier later that evening in Tullamore. Yet Offaly's plea to have the games played on different days in an effort to accommodate supporters were rejected. "The whole thing is very disappointing for us," Boland said. "Two weeks ago when we looked to change the fixtures so that our supporters could see both county teams, the GAA said there was no way that could be done because it would cause problems for their massive fixture plan. "They couldn't change it then but now they're changing their fixtures to suit themselves." Boland is also strongly opposed to the SHC relegation play-offs, which he believes are doing nothing for the promotion of hurling in the counties involved. "There's absolutely no logic to this idea. I would have thought that the GAA would have learnt their lesson from the football qualifier problems a couple of years ago. They didn't let Division 4 teams in the qualifiers and then ended up reversing that decision. "This plan is not promoting hurling. There's few enough counties competing at the top level in hurling and now they want to reduce that number. In the 1990s, Offaly, Clare and Wexford won five All-Irelands between them. And now there's a possibility of one of them going down. That won't help anyone. "The whole delay is very disappointing for us and it's hard to know what the GAA will do now. They should have decided this last weekend when the problem arose and it's open to interpretation as how to solve it. "In Offaly we've had to put club games back another week because of the uncertainty and the clubs are unhappy about that. But we're forced into it because we don't know what's happening." Tweet

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