There will be no decision made on the rescheduling of the weather-hit Allianz Hurling League games due to be played last weekend until later this week.
In the top flight, the Galway-Tipperary and Limerick-Waterford fell by the wayside as Storm Dennis battered the west coast in particular, while Offaly-Antrim (Division 2A), Derry-Kildare (Division 2B) and Fermanagh-Sligo (Division 3B) also had to be postponed.
The GAA’s Central Competitions Control Committee has said that new arrangements for those games will be made “in the coming days”.
It appears certain that, for the third year running, the Division One hurling final will be played later than scheduled due to weather-enforced cancellations.
With quarter-finals and semi-finals to be played, there are no more free weekends between now and the scheduled final date of March 22. There may be a stroke of luck if it winds up that neither game has an impact on who reaches the knockout stages but it will be another couple of weeks before that becomes apparent.
Last year’s Limerick-Waterford final was played a week later than scheduled, and as a double header with the football decider, while two years ago the Kilkenny-Tipperary final took place a fortnight later than planned.
While playing the games midweek could be explored, it’s most unlikely to come to pass given that, unlike Limerick, Galway don’t have a floodlit venue capable of staging a game of that stature and would hardly concede home advantage.
A midweek fixture would present logistical issues too, particularly given the distance that Waterford players would have to cover to reach Limerick on a working day.
The Allianz Football League got back on track on Sunday with three games that were called off the previous weekend all going ahead at the second time of asking. The finals weekend for that competition falls on March 28/29.
