Quaid slams 'absolutely ridiculous' timing of Kildare hurlers' crucial playoff against Antrim

Lost in all the commotion this week surrounding the venue for the county’s senior footballers’ clash with Mayo has been what is forever the poorer relation in Kildare – the hurlers.

A major issue has arisen this week as the GAA have scheduled the Christy Ring/Joe McDonagh Cup playoff between Antrim and Kildare for 12.45pm on Saturday in Armagh. Kildare defeated London in the Christy Ring Cup final last Saturday, meaning they have a shot at taking down the Saffrons and making the leap to the Joe McDonagh Cup where they would rub shoulders with the likes of Offaly, Westmeath and Carlow in championship fare.

There is absolutely no reason that this game should even be played at all; Antrim were the second worst team in the Joe McDonagh Cup this year, Kildare were the best team in the Christy Ring Cup – there should be a straight swap. If the winners of Westmeath and Carlow can jump straight into the Leinster Championship while Offaly fall to the Joe McDonagh Cup, why can’t this be the case with the third tier competition also? Meath might be coming down as the lowest placed team in the Joe McDonagh Cup, but Kildare should have been promoted in their place and London could have played against Antrim in a playoff.

Excluding the needlessness of this playoff, the timing leaves a lot to be desired. A young Kildare side are just days on from the biggest achievement of the their careers, yet they are being made go out and deliver the goods again in what is essentially a bigger game just seven days later. To see the joy and celebrations in Naas GAA Club on Saturday night was fantastic, but in the back of their minds the players will have been thinking about their next challenge and that shouldn’t be the case.

Winning a national trophy should mean that players can enjoy a few days of celebration as it happens with such rarity, and speaking to a few of the players after they were intent on enjoying their night on Saturday, and possibly spilling into Sunday, and that should be the case. But winning the Christy Ring Cup is as much about promoting the county to the next echelon of hurling, and not just the glory of claiming silverware. Putting Kildare’s clash with Antrim on this Saturday hugely dents their prospects of doing so.

Antrim haven’t played since June 9, giving them three weeks to prepare for this game and allowing them to analyse last week’s game between Kildare and London. Kildare, who train just once this week on Wednesday, will not have had the chance to do as much preparation for Saturday as their opponents.

In fairness, the fixture was already pencilled in for that date, but Kildare manager Joe Quaid could hardly go crowing about a potential fixture against Antrim when the Lilywhites hadn’t even won the Christy Ring Cup.

“It’s absolutely ridiculous,” he told KildareNow.

“Number one, the fact that it’s on a week after – we knew the fixture was there, but how can you go against it when you haven’t even won. Why there isn’t straight up, straight down is beyond me, and if they want to relegate a second team, put the second team in the Christy Ring against the second last team in the Joe McDonagh Cup.”

“They are reducing the teams in the elite competitions by one instead of trying to promote hurling and get more teams playing at that level. They’re trying to reduce teams at that level.”

The fact that the game is on at 12.45pm on a Saturday means that Kildare will have to leave their base at the Osprey Hotel at around 9am. Even if they looked into organising accommodation for the night before, the GAA didn’t announce the venue until Monday and trying to find a hotel for around 40 people at four days notice in the middle of the summer is next to impossible.

“It’s madness, absolute madness,” Quaid said of the timing.

“I don’t know what the rush is with it… it beggars belief why we’re being asked to do that. It’s bad enough having to play the week after, but then to be playing at quarter to one on a Saturday in Armagh… I don’t know.

“From our perspective, the GAA have done nothing wrong. It’s up to them to fix where they want to fix it, but morally what they have done is completely wrong. But morals and the hierarchy of the GAA don’t go hand in hand.

He remains insistent that the players will be up for this game however, and that the bad planning will not dampen their desire to win.

“We’re going to go and have a right cut off this. On paper, this is probably a more important match than last Saturday. This is ridiculous; the final of your competition should be the most important, not a playoff.”

Kildare will also be missing Mark Grace, Mick Purcell, Shane Ryan, Simon Lacey and Dylan Brereton who are all on holidays, meaning the panel will be stretched.

As always, Quaid remained in humorous form, jokingly suggesting that the issue over the Kildare v Mayo All-Ireland qualifier may benefit his panel.

“We might bring in the permit players. If the footballers aren’t playing we might be able to get Johnny Byrne and Fergal Conway and a few of the lads over.”