THE pitch at St Mary’s, Burren was described as “hard as the road” in some places by one of the Down management team three-quarters-of-an hour before the scheduled throw-in time yesterday.
Soon afterwards, it was announced that the Section B clash between Down and Ulster University would be delayed by half-an-hour to give the frozen surface every chance to thaw out after heavy overnight frost.
But with the weak winter sun blotted out by thick cloud, the decision was taken to postpone the game shortly after 2pm.
Down manager Eamonn Burns had feared the worst after waking to find his car covered with frost – not a common occurrence on the coast at Newcastle – and he agreed that the postponement was the “sensible decision”.
“Player safety is paramount,” said Burns.
“I went on to the field at quarter-to-one and it didn’t look good. They moved it back half-an-hour but the light was dropping so it wasn’t any advantage when they reassessed it.
“It’s too dangerous in the goalmouths. Somebody was going to get hurt and you don’t want that.
“We’re starting off the year, getting ready for the National League and UU are getting ready for the Sigerson Cup so you don’t want anybody out, you want your whole panel to pick from. So I think it was the sensible decision at the end of the day and the whole county is the same.”
Burns had made several changes to the side that lost to Armagh for yesterday’s round two clash.
Clonduff’s Shay Murnin and Carryduff’s Jack Guinness were in line for senior debuts, while Bredagh’s Conor Francis (a sub against the Orchardmen) would have made his full debut and established stars Caolan Mooney and Annaclone defender Benny McArdle were in line for their first starts of 2018.
The 28-man Down panel also included Kilcoo clubman Darragh O’Hanlon and Glasdrumman forward Connaire Harrison. O’Hanlon and Harrison were fixtures in last season’s run to the Ulster final but had missed Wednesday night’s season opener.
“Darragh and Connaire are just available now,” said Burns.
“They have come through the rehab and appear to be okay but they haven’t got game-time under their belts. They were playing full contact [in training] at the end of last week so it’s good to get them back and there are a couple of other boys close and hopefully they’ll be ready in the next week or so.
“We got Barry O’Hagan back last week and that was his first competitive action on Wednesday night [against Armagh] which was good to see. He came on and played well so hopefully things are moving on for those boys.”
Talented forward O’Hagan suffered a shoulder injury playing for his club Clonduff last summer which had ruled him out of the Ulster final against Tyrone and the round four Qualifier against Monaghan at Croke Park that followed it.
“Having Barry back in is a boost to us,” said Burns.
“I think we missed him last year when we were going well in the Championship and he would have been a great addition to bring in. He’s over his injury now and has come through the rehab so he’ll be back in action and hopefully he keeps moving forward.”
Ulster CCC will meet today to thrash out a new schedule for the competition with the semi-finals – scheduled for next Sunday – likely to be pushed back until Wednesday, January 17 ahead of the final on Saturday, January 20.
“We’ll train tomorrow night,” said Burns.
“We were in a bit of a dilemma over whether to train or not given the close proximity of the next game but we’ll train tomorrow night, get the boys back together and get ready for Wednesday.”
