Connacht Junior Cup fixture clash is pure lunacy

Junior Cup fixture clash is pure lunacy


Rob Murphy

IRELAND play New Zealand at the Aviva Stadium on Sunday, November 24 at 2pm in the third of their series of games during the Autumn internationals. New coach Joe Schmidt will be fully settled in and the interest in seeing how Ireland fare against the world’s best side will be considerable.
So you might be perplexed to learn that on that very same day in the province of Connacht, a full round of Heineken Junior Cup games have been scheduled. Madness? We think so, and there is more to it than meets the eye.
Rugby administration these days is a battle between two competing ideologies. There are those who want to bring order, structure and deadlines to the process to make it more professional, streamlined and efficient, and they are battling against those who want to have a more flexible situation that keeps the focus on the fact that this is amateur sport and enjoyment is the name of the game.
A scenario where either one of those two ideologies dominates is ultimately unworkable and detrimental to the sport. For the moment at least, the pendulum in Connacht has swing too far towards the ultra-conservative position, leading to farcical situations like the one above.
The Connacht leagues are run by the Competitions and Re-gradings Committee, who are elected to their roles by branch delegates from all clubs in the province. At the start of the year, they had a full meeting to discuss the new structures where the dates were clearly outlined, and not one club raised this as an issue.
All too often, the clubs like to just point the finger at league organisers in a ‘them and us’ scenario ignoring the fact that they are the branch. A lack of due basic diligence and foresight meant they missed this, but that doesn’t absolve the committee, who should never have sanctioned it.
They have their March deadline for the junior leagues to finish, but the first round of the cup is for second- and third-tier sides, and pushing those two leagues back by one week to ensure we don’t have to have this clash seems like the moststraight forward decision in the world.
Clubs have every right to re-arrange their first round fixtures for the Saturday, November 23 if they both agree once the draw is made on November 4. But agreements like this aren’t straightforward and and some disputes will no doubt ensue.
The rugby family is a small one. Fixing club games that clash with the biggest international day of the season is lunacy and should never have been allowed to happen.