A personal appeal to fixtures secretary by Paddy McIlwaine
Ronan McKillop who will line out for All Saints in the Og Sport final at Ahoghill at 5-30 and, possibly the Laverty Cup final that follows while 20 miles up the road in Cloughmills Luke O’Rawe will take his place for the Ballymena side in the Junior B Hurling final against St. Agnes
In what has been an exceptional week for All Saints GAC I would like to make an appeal to our county fixtures secretary. This is a personal appeal and one on behalf of the club, not the Saffron Gael. All Saints, as I have already stated have had an excellent week on the playing field, winning the Breslin Cup on Sunday and last night becoming South West Og Sport champions.
At the weekend they also qualified for the Junior B Hurling final, having defeated Davitt’s in the semi-final at Tir na nOg while their U14 hurlers also qualified for the North Antrim U14 Hurling Shield final with a great win over Loch Mor Dal gCail.
Well done! I hear you say and I certainly agree with those sentiments but unfortunately this success has brought about an unwelcome clash of fixtures. All Saints are scheduled to meet Davitt’s in the All County Og Sport final on Sunday at 5-30 in Ahoghill followed by the Laverty Cup final between All Saints and Tir na nOg.
Unfortunately the Junior B Hurling final has been fixed at 6-00 in Cloughmills and will suffer badly from a lack of support as a large section of All Saints supporters, who would have attended, will attend the Og Sport and Laverty Cup final instead.
Both clubs involved in the Junior B Hurling final have worked extremely hard to promote hurling in their clubs with All Saints having performed admirably this year in their first season back in the All County league and, thanks to the hard work of Paddy Neeson and his assistants, the club have unearthed a good sprinkling of young players and the future looks bright.
When I covered the Og Sport finals last night in Ballymena it was great to see young lads from the club out practising their hurling skills, something I’ve noticed increasingly in the last year and it’s to be applauded and hopefully will help hurling to grow and flourish. Many of the All Saints supporters however expressed their disappointment in not being able to attend both Sunday’s finals.
I’m quite sure when these fixtures were made neither the All County or South West fixtures secretaries were aware of the clash of fixtures. The South West generally makes its fixtures for finals on a weekend when there is no All County football fixtures.
It would be great if possible if the Junior Hurling final could be switched to an earlier time. This would ensure that the final would attract a descent crowd that would be in keeping with the importance of this event to both clubs.
Perhaps an even better suggestion, and I’m sure my good friends in Clooney would accommodate it, would be a treble header at the Ahoghill venue. This would boost the already bumper crowd that is guaranteed for the Og Sport-Laverty Cup double fixture and create an atmosphere worthy of All three finals.
Fixtures Secretary, can you help?
Paddy Mac