Castlehaven boss McCarthy welcomes clarity as county finals postponed until March 2021

CASTLEHAVEN manager James McCarthy has welcomed the Cork County Board’s decision to postpone the unplayed 2020 senior and intermediate county finals until the start of March, at the earliest.

It means that Castlehaven’s mouth-watering Cork Premier senior football championship final against Nemo Rangers – which was originally scheduled for October 11th before being postponed – could take place in early March 2021.

‘It’s good that we now have a date to look forward to and there is rationale too behind this decision,’ McCarthy told The Southern Star.

‘I think it was the best move to make to put the games back to March because at least players can relax a bit now, wind down a bit, because we’re coming into the winter months. You can’t keep players ticking over by saying ‘it might be on, it might be on’ because that’s no way to prepare for a championship game, let alone a county senior final.

‘We have some clarity now, a date to aim for and to plan for, and we will be coming into better weather too in March. If everything goes well, maybe the leagues will be up and running by then so we might have a few games before the county final because it would be very hard on fellas to play a one-off game in the middle of January.

‘I think the county board has made the right call here.’

The county board has explained that it will also ‘give adequate notice of games to clubs, with an appropriate window of preparation, in advance of finals.’

McCarthy is optimistic too that the new dates in March might even mean that supporters would be able to attend the county finals.

‘Hopefully we will be in a better place by then but we don’t know, but wouldn’t it be great to play a county final on St Patrick’s Day? And maybe we could have supporters back in by then? I’m being optimistic, I know, but you have to be in these times,’ the Castlehaven manager added.

Meanwhile, the 2020 county championships at Junior A, B and C levels will resume on February 5th-7th, 2021, at the earliest, with a brief period to be allowed for the completion of divisional championships in early February where required.

Cork GAA chiefs have also stated that there will be no club games at adult or juvenile level permitted at county board or divisional level before Friday, February 5th. Also, club U21 competitions for 2020 will not be completed.