The Irish Hockey Association - in consultation with the Leinster Branch - today took the decision to cancel the men's and ESB U-21 interpros, scheduled for February 13 to 15
In a statement released this afternoon, the IHA said: "The decision is due to the severe weather conditions Dublin has been experiencing recently and in particular Three Rock Rovers where the pitch has been unplayable for two weeks now.
"The weather outlook for the next five days is unfavourable and would indicate it will be impossible to play the tournament at Three Rock Rovers, alternative venues in Dublin were sought but unsuccessfully.
"The early decision on this will enable branches to cancel their own arrangements with minimal financial penalties."
28 comments:
in my opinion no pitch is unplayable. Im a glenanne member and i was up at the our pitch last nite, where 50 people turned up to help out with the pitch, we got about 80% of the pitch cleared and are going to be all right for training this coming week, provided the sun did its job today. A little hard work goes a long way. No enthusiasm shown to make this pitch playable what so ever!
Will it be replayed??
Will it be rescheduled?!?! It's a big disappointment for all the players and I hope IHA do their best to find alternative date.
i dont think its a case of the pitch only being unplayable right at this minute. even if the 3 inches of snow still on it were cleared theres meant to be frost at the weekend, in which case the friday night and saturday morning games would be in trouble. as the iha said, they are probably trying to ensure as few people as possible are put out both cost and travelling wise
I'd be willing to get my shovel out!!!
Here here...i'll join u with the shovelling!
i will aswell if all the girls and guys 21s and a few rovers players there is no reason y it would be called of!
annoyed supporter :(
ucd have there good pitch and have opened up a new one why is it not there???
Grange Road is provided free of charge, UCD will cost a pretty penny...
the pitch is still covered in snow and while shovelling the snow off the side of the pitch will solve a problem for about an hour, the pitch will still freeze as the temperature drops.
met.ie predicts hard frost both friday and saturday. matches are due off at 10am.
with the U-16 tournament cancelled earlier this year with teams stranded in Kilkenny and big costs for all provinces, its moronic to say there is 'no reason' to call the tournament off.
lets get our mittens and spade's!!
SNOWCASTLES!
The National Hockey Stadium in UCD is owned by the IHA and Univerity College Dublin Sports Department (it may not even be owned by UCD, just managed by it). The IHA have complete contol of the pitch and can demand the use of it at any time they want, free of charge. They may have to pay for the other 2 pitches, I don't know, but I don't think they'd like to play an interpro tornement on either of them as they're both pretty bad quality sand-baseds (Though, admittedly, it is better than nothing). Also if they used UCD they'd have find an alternative for the national team to train on sunday never mind the amount of Leinster branch matches that would postpone for UCDLHC and Genisis.
It was the right decision. The Branches has the foesight to make the decision early and not leave other provinces in limbo.
I think the idea behind the decision was that the pitch would be playable if cleared for SOME matches on the weekend but not all of them (i.e late and early games) and this would cause disruption to the tournament as a whole.
People may be annoyed now but it was the right decision to make overall. I think the tournament is being replayed some time in April.
YMCA played against Clontarf last night and the team spent two hours clearing the pitch throughout lunch breaks and before the game to ensure the game went ahead.
You would think that in dire economic times lke this that TRR as a club would want the income generated at the bar / sandwiches etc by having several hundred persons in attendance over one weekend.
In the interest of sport, they should have at least got shovels and brushes out to get rid of the snow. With 7-11 degrees forecast during the day for the next week, I cannot understand the logic of rescheduling this tournament into an already congested fixture list.
The fault should surely lie with the host club who unlike YMCA, Glennane and Pembroke (to name a few) got club members to help out and clear the pitch to ensure hockey can be played.
where there is a will - there is a way !!!! At least if the shovels were out & the pitch cleared - the Tournament had a chance of proceeding !!!! This tournament must be given a slot in the IHA calendar for this season & not just let 'die a death'. It's an opportunity for the young talent to show their skills to Irish Coach etc
Have Pembroke no good U21 players ????
yeh i'dreckon the hartes might get a look in in any of the interpro squads?likewise stuart loughrey,he played last year when he was just gone 17,so i'd back him to get into the leinster squad especially seeing some of the names that did get selected,and another one that people dont remember is scott lowrie who played left back for pembroke all of last season,he's chosen to take this year out from 1st division hockey,and is one that would definitely have been in that leinster squad.
Should have attempted to lear the pitch to at least give the surface an outside chance of being playable but it was still the right decision to cancel the tournament,no point wasting money on hotels and bus hire in the hope that games would get played all weekend
Yeah bit strange pembroke have no u21 players, must be a first. Mind you they did beat corinthians in the 21s cup without the Hartes playing (i think) so there must be some good players there.
I think Loughrey didn't make the team because he was on Leinster Under 18's. The notice sent around to clubs stated you couldn't play for any other underage team.
Shane O'Donoghue and Kyle Good would have been contenders also
i too will help with this shoveling. if it needs to be done, it needs to be done!
Lets call a spade a spade here!
Where would you lads who want to clear two pitches ( not 1) put all this snow ...just drive into Three Rock and have a look at how much snow there is ...there is a LOT of it there , more than there would have been at lower levels of the city , a lot more ...a mammoth task to even put it outside the fence , as you couldnt just sweep it to the side of the pitch for safety reasons...Player and spectator safety is of the highest priority and that could not be certain with possible frozen pitches ...The fiasco in Kilkenny cannot be repeated
what about the kilkenny coll centre mid, how come he hasnt been on any of these sides?? he is definitely good enough.
he wasnt picked because he wasnt good enough, or else he wasnt at the trials,
throw the snow into marley!!! that would sort out the problem
As I said earlier this week the tournament should have gone ahead. All they needed to do was check the weather charts as I did!
friday morning the two pitches are fully clear. just a bad call!
Lads,
It wasn't about wheter the snow was cleared or not. The Branch reckoned that the snow would thaw but that severe frost (which WAS forecasted) would prevent every game from being played.
Some people are just so hypocritical it is unreal. The Under 16's goes ahead when it shouldn't and it is a 'farce' that it wasn't called off before the weekends etc.
The Branch makes a sensible decision (primarily to save people money in the current economic climate and prevent another 'farce') which has ended up being poorly judged at the moment. What happens? People jump on their backs and ask 'what were they thinking?'. But what do you want them to do? Become fortune tellers as well. Overall they made the right decision given the state of the pitch on Tuesday/Wednesday and the forecast given.
For the record, I'm not invovled in any branch or the IHA but one of my family members is and it is disgraceful how much bashing goes on. So get down off your high horse and help out if you are not happy about it.
Very Strange - As Met Eirean had the forecast as 8 during the day & 4 at night !!! & that was on Wednesday with their 3 day forecast !!! NO mention of frost !!! A bad call & taken too early !!!
So the U16s should have been called off and the U12s shouldn't - since when did 2 wrongs make a right?
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