Liam McHale and Mayo Ladies in anger about pitch debacle in Cork

Mayo Ladies boss Liam McHale cut a frustrated figure in the wake of Saturday’s two-point win for his side against Cork in the National League at the 4G Pitch at Páirc Uí Chaoimh in Cork.

While ultimately happy to carve out the win, and some vital league points - it was the build-up to the game which McHale found far from satisfactory - the game taking place in Cork City instead of Mallow - and three hours later than originally planned.

“We came down on Friday, we don’t normally stay overnight, because we wouldn’t normally have the finances to do that sort of stuff, but we targeted this game as we figured it would be a big game for us, in aiming to stay in Division 1,” McHale said after the two-point win.

“At 5.30pm on Friday evening Padraig (Hennigan) rang me and said there’s all sorts of stuff going on. We talked about it and said we weren’t happy about it - the weather was lovely coming down. There was a lot of tooing and froing going on.

“We said that we would play in Cork at 2.30pm or 3:30pm. We have girls who needed to get buses or trains back to Dublin. We didn’t want them going through the city at 1am, or not being able to get home at all - so now they have to come back to Mayo with us instead of going to Dublin.

“We have two girls who are nurses - one in Galway and one in Castlebar, and I think they are missing their shift or they are gone with their parents trying to get home now - our bus driver is going to be five or six hours out now. He has a wife with a small baby so all of those sorts of things went on!

“We were told the pitch wasn’t playable. Myself and two of my colleagues went and walked the pitch today. It was much better than the pitches we are training on in Mayo, and I’d like to thank people in Aghamore and Garrymore and places like that for giving us pitches.

“The pitch (in Mallow) was perfect for this time of the year I would say. Padraig Hennigan went to look at it at 12.30pm. He was supposed to meet the original referee there. The referee arrived at the hotel, we (the Management) weren’t there, and he tells the girls ‘the pitch is not playable’.

“We had two visits to the pitch, but he didn’t visit with us. He said he wasn’t available for 5.30pm in Cork and then the Cork Board get another ref. We had a decision to make - do we go home, or do we try to play the game!”

Indeed Liam wasn’t the only one to express his frustration over the movement of the fixture with forward Fiona McHale pondering why the game didn’t take place in Páirc Uí Chaoimh itself.

She tweeted: “Hard to comprehend why Mayo v Cork game today was played on Supervalu Páirc Uí Chaoimh 4G pitch and not in the actual stadium. Surely this pitch can take both games this weekend? Do Supervalu not sponsor Cork ladies?”

Fiona’s tweet was accompanied by a photo of the 4G pitch, and also one of Páirc Uí Chaoimh through a pane of glass in and/or from close to where the teams togged out in the stadium dressing rooms.

Cork GAA CEO Kevin O’Donovan responded to say that a request to play the game on the main pitch had been made, but that it hadn’t been brought to his attention, and that “we’ll now tighten and reinforce our joint Terms of Reference to avoid a repeat. Cork LGFA acted in good faith at all times and we’ll continue to support them.”