As Eamon McGee says, “we only take the big teams into the old pitch”.
You could write a whole book on GAA ploys but Gweedore of Donegal pulled a classic bit of devilment on Sunday evening, one of the oldest tricks out of that unwritten book.
The west county outfit welcomed Kilcar to town for a Division One league game but the Donegal senior champions were not going to get things easy up in Gweedore.
Going into the clash, a point separated the pair at the top of the table with the visitors sitting barely ahead of Gweedore after six games.
By the end of Sunday, the two clubs had still played six games.
It seems that there was an issue over which pitch the senior game would be played on with Gweedore opting to host the match on their “old pitch”. However, the referee, listed as Connie Doherty, had concerns about how close the sideline was to the wall.
So Gweedore had a contingency plan that completely negated the need to even think of the new pitch.
Just get a new sideline drawn and get it done quickly.
They had obviously prepared on that pitch and thought their chances of winning were better on that field and maybe the tighter sidelines pleased them even further but Kilcar must’ve looked at it and thought, ‘piss off’.
Ryan Ferry of the Donegal News, who’s so often on the pulse of club football in the hills, was at Gweedore for the game.
At Magheragallon for Gaoth Dobhair – Kilcar. Game hasn't started yet. GD want to play on old pitch but ref not allowing it at the moment.
— Ryan Ferry (@RFerry92) May 12, 2018
Kilcar togging in. No game here by the looks of it.
— Ryan Ferry (@RFerry92) May 12, 2018
Kilcar were said to be unhappy with the resolution and a stand-off emerged.
https://twitter.com/EamonMcGee/status/995409220072861696
https://twitter.com/EamonMcGee/status/995415171211382791
It probably makes no odds to Gweedore who will surely just line the pitch out officially for Kilcar’s return so they’ll get to play against the speedsters of Kilcar on the old pitch anyway and it will be a lot tighter this time too.
It was the guts of a three-hour round trip for the visitors to play no match.
Thankfully, the reserve game went ahead. That was played on the new pitch, see.
It was played on the new pitch
— Ryan Ferry (@RFerry92) May 12, 2018
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