GAA provides clear roadmap for club and county seasons

By Shane Brophy

When the GAA released its updated Master Fixtures Calendar for the 2021 season last week, you could feel the exhalation of relief around the country.

The inter-county season will finally get underway on the weekend of May 8/9 with the start of the Allianz Hurling League, with the Football League beginning a week later.

The inter-county season will continue until the end of August with the All-Ireland Hurling Final on Sunday 22nd August with the football decider the following Sunday.

From there, County Club Championships will be played in the months of September, October and into November with the provincial championships in late November into December with the All-Ireland Club Finals scheduled for February 2022.

The inter-county fixtures programme will be run off in a 20-week period and guarantees a minimum of five games for each Senior County Football and Hurling team with all bar three counties guaranteed six games in hurling.

2021 Liam MacCarthy Cup

There will be a provincial knock-out championship with back-door qualifiers like there was in 2020, but now also with the introduction of relegation to the Joe McDonagh Cup.

The Munster & Leinster Championships will begin on 26-27 June with the quarter finals with the semi-finals the following weekend and the provincial finals on 17/18 July.

There will be a preliminary round in the qualifiers between the two defeated quarter-final teams in Leinster with the winners progressing to round 1 of the Qualifiers and the losers relegated to the Joe McDonagh Cup in 2022.

The All-Ireland quarter finals will be played a week later with the semi-finals on 31 July/1 August with the semi-finals on weekend 7-8 August and the All-Ireland Final on Sunday 22nd August.

All-Ireland Senior Football Championship

The 2021 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship will be played as a straight knock-out competition from the provincial series forward, the same as 2020. There will be no Qualifiers and New York and London will not be involved. There will be no Tailteann Cup also.

By virtue of reaching last year’s Munster Final, Tipperary will receive a bye straight to this year’s provincial semi-finals which are pencilled in for the weekend of 10-11 July with the Munster final on Sunday 25th July. The draw for which takes place next Monday morning.

The four provincial winners will progress to the All-Ireland semi-finals on 14-15 August with the All-Ireland Final on Sunday 29th August, bringing an end to the inter-county season.

MINOR AND UNDER 20

Before the 2021 minor and under 20 championships can be pencilled in, the 2020 championships have yet to be completed, although Tipperary are not involved.

However, respective Tipperary managements (James Woodlock and Johnny Nevin – minor hurling & football, John Devane and Paddy Christie) are still none the wiser about when the 2021 championships will take place.

Club Window

Club championships can begin in all counties from the first weekend in September, but they can start earlier as county teams exit the championship which for Tipperary could as early as 10-11 July if they lose a first round hurling qualifier and a Munster football semi-final.

From August 1st, all counties bar the All-Ireland semi-finalists in Football and Hurling, and the teams in the Division 1 Hurling Relegation play off, will be free to stage club championships.

However, all this is dependent on the Covid-19 restrictions falling to Level 3 which will permit the playing of club games and while this should be the case later in the summer, clubs and county boards will want to plan what to do in advance of the club championship in terms of training, and also planning some league competitions for clubs to tune up in.

Returning to the club championship, in a best-case scenario of Tipperary reaching an All-Ireland Hurling final on 22 August, the club championship would likely begin a week later and stretching up to the last two weekends in November, it would provide a fourteen-week window to play county championships, three weekends more than what was in pace for the senior and intermediate championships in the county in 2020.

To aid counties that reach at least the All-Ireland semi-finals in either hurling or football, provinces have been requested to ensure that, where possible, the respective county champions in senior, intermediate and junior hurling and football are not drawn in the first round of the provincial club championship to provide extra time to complete their county championships.

The Senior Provincial Club Championship, which were not played for in 2020, will most likely start in or around the weekend of November 20/21 with the All-Ireland Senior Club Finals are provisionally scheduled for the weekend of February 12/13, 2022.