Davitt College, Castlebar, lost out to Cookstown last weekend in the All Ireland Vocational Schools u16A final when they were comprehensively beaten by Cookstown from Tyrone by 1-17 to 0-3. However it emerged that at the beginning of March Crossmolina had played a number of over age players in their Connacht final win over St Tiernan’s. When they found out about this they had no avenue to appeal as they had not made an appeal in time.
Claire Hopkins, a parent of one of the Crossmolina players and the secretary of Crossmolina Bord na nÓg, told the Mayo Advertiser that this rule just was not good enough. “If they had known before that there were players playing overage, something could have been done, but to let them go on and play in an All Ireland semi-final, because it was only found out after the three days had passed, just is not good enough. And one of the players involved scored quite a bit in the game. We appealed to have the game replayed before the All Ireland semi-final but nothing was done about it.”
Connacht GAA secretary John Prenty told the Mayo Advertiser there was nothing that the Connacht Council could do as the objection was not lodged in time. “The three day rule had elapsed before they brought an objection, so there is nothing that we could have done about it.” However Michael Herr from the Connacht Council did confirm that the issue would be discussed at a meeting last night after this paper went to print.
