SEVERAL key players from both sides are set to miss the Ulster U20 football final over the latest clash with senior fixtures – unless a DRA hearing on Tuesday night alters the landscape.
Derry and Down are due to meet next Wednesday night, April 26. The two counties are on the same wavelength and have been trying through Ulster Council to find a solution, but there had been little hope of success.
However, Clare have taken a case to the DRA over the ruling introduced this year that bars players from playing with their U20 and senior teams within seven days of each other.
Down play Donegal in a senior quarter-final this Sunday, April 23, with Derry facing Monaghan in a semi-final on Saturday week, April 29.
Both those games fall inside the window of the new seven-day rule.
Derry senior manager Rory Gallagher’s public protestations helped force a change to the date of the semi-final for Marty Boyle’s U20s, which left their opponents Donegal unhappy.
That moved allowed Derry to use Eoin McEvoy and Lachlan Murray against Fermanagh at the weekend, while Matthew Downey and Niall O’Donnell were unused subs.
In order to be deemed ineligible, a player must actually come on in a game within the seven-day window and not just be named in the 26-man squad.
As it stands Down U20s will be without Odhran Murdock, providing he plays this weekend against Donegal as expected.
Ryan Magill would also have been ruled out but looks likely to miss both games through injury, while Paddy McCarthy – who marked Ruairi Canavan brilliantly in Down’s surprise U20 win over Tyrone - is the third player possibly affected, though he isn’t expected to make an appearance for the senior team on Sunday.
Both counties have sought solutions through consultation with Ulster GAA but with the All-Ireland U20 semi-final set for the weekend of May 6/7, there is no obvious switch of date that would alleviate the problem.
To push the Ulster final back would require an agreement from Croke Park to push the All-Ireland series as well but given that the county’s senior sides could well remain involved in the provincial series beyond the next two weekends, even that might only kick the can down the road.
That would change if Clare are successful in their appeal to the DRA. They feel that Central Council’s recent interpretation of the rule’s wording changed its effect and are seeking for that interpretation to be overturned.
