Munster to face Leinster in FRC interprovincial semi-final
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Munster will face Leinster in the Football Review Committee-sanctioned (FRC) interprovincial football semi-finals in Croke Park on October 18.
Connacht and Ulster are due to meet in the first of the games played under the experimental rules that Friday evening before the John Cleary-managed Munster oppose Leinster, led by Dessie Dolan.
A full press briefing of the rules has been slated for Croke Park next Thursday. There, FRC chairman Jim Gavin and his fellow committee members will reveal the complete rule changes that will be put in action in the live televised games on October 18 and 19 when the cup and shield finals will also be played at GAA HQ.
Having since taken over as Tyrone manager, Malachy O’Rourke remains on the body. Tickets for the games will go on sale on Monday. Priced at €15 for an adult and €5 for a child, that admission is set to cover the Friday and Saturday matches.
Training sessions for the squad will take place at four provincial venues on Saturday week. As well as the managers Cleary, Dolan, Connacht’s Pádraic Joyce and Ulster’s Kieran Donnelly, at least one FRC member will be at each gathering to explain the rules.
The interprovincials’ participants will be inter-county footballers who are no longer involved in club championship activity. Already, there is believed to be strong interest expressed by some leading players about togging out.
The latest trial game in Inniskeen’s McGrattan Park last Saturday between Armagh and Dublin development teams, officiated by Monaghan’s Martin McNally, was received positively from inter-county managers in attendance.
Sources say the big winner was the solo-and-go option for a player who has won a free, an idea first suggested by Dublin manager Dessie Farrell as Gaelic Players Association chief executive 12 years ago.
A number of the rule changes will be finalised in the coming days. For instance, the FRC have not yet decided if the end of a half is called as soon as the hooter is sounded or when the ball goes out of play after it is blown.
Among the playing enhancements as they have been described them include the four-point goal, retaining three outfield players behind each 65m line at all times and a one-on-one throw-in at the start of each half.
The FRC are to brief the GAA’s Central Council on the list of rule changes in a remote meeting on October 16. Ard Chomhairle will then convene in person at their regular gathering on October 26 to vote which of the proposals go forward as motions at Special Congress in Croke Park on November 30.
Although Gavin has insisted the body does not have the power to revive the Railway Cup, the semi-final draw is in keeping with the rota that was in place before the competition was disbanded after 2016.
In 2015, the semi-finals were scheduled to be Connacht v Ulster and Leinster v Munster but the games and the competition never took place due to adverse weather conditions that December.