{"id":314424,"date":"2026-02-24T08:51:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T08:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/314424\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T08:51:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T08:51:09","slug":"minor-final-before-senior-would-make-galway-summers-a-wasteland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/314424\/","title":{"rendered":"Minor final before senior would make Galway summers ‘a wasteland’"},"content":{"rendered":"

The underage scene in Galway will become a summer \u201cwasteland\u201d if All-Ireland minor finals return as curtain-raisers to the senior deciders, according to county chairman Paul Bellew.<\/p>\n

Fermanagh are bringing forward a motion to Congress this Saturday looking for the ultimate U17 games to be restored to their previous billing for the first time since 2019.<\/p>\n

Bellew points out the ticketing implications a minor final would have on the allocations of those counties competing in the senior game, but Galway\u2019s opposition to the motion is rooted in what the traditional final double-header would do to the club scene in their county.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe played 254 games last year between our minor and our U20 championships. That involved 161 teams and 2,898 young lads. They all played at least three rounds in the summer.<\/p>\n

\"GalwayGalway GAA chairman Paul Bellew. Pic \u00a9INPHO\/Ben Brady<\/p>\n

\u201cThe usual comment is \u2018if you get knocked out, you can start then\u2019 but Galway have played in 10 All-Ireland minor finals between hurling and football since 2016.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s fair to say, on the law of averages, we should have deep concern about what this would do to our club game. If you go with this, we wouldn\u2019t be able to play any minor or U20 in July.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe talk about, on the other side of our mouth, giving up games to other sports or giving up time to other sports. We\u2019d be making Galway a wasteland in that period.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat level of participation, particularly the U20 competition, is what\u2019s driving our adult participation. So, we\u2019re just totally opposed to all for the sake of 40,000 or 50,000 people who are lucky to be at an All-Ireland final to give them a bit of entertainment for an hour? I\u2019m not even sure what the good reasons for it are.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Last year\u2019s Waterford-Clare minor hurling final was staged in Thurles on June 28, while the Tyrone-Kerry football decider was played in Newbridge on July 6.<\/p>\n

Bellew agrees underage matches can be given more profile and isn’t against minor-senior double-headers taking place, just earlier in the summer. \u201cWe should be playing hurling and football week-on, week-off and under-age football should be played on the weekends of adult hurling and vice-versa.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I think double-headers should also happen up to maybe All-Ireland quarter-final level. We don\u2019t see anything wrong with 17- or 18-year-olds playing before adult games. Our issue is only about the timing of the underage competitions in the calendar.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat has gone under the radar is if you extend the competitions by three or four weeks, there\u2019s an extra cost to feed and equip a minor or U20 team. It ain\u2019t cheap.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re talking about the amateur status and the runaway train on one side of our mouths then pushing out underage championships on the other.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the minor championships currently sit well in the calendar. You could probably move them to team up with a semi-final or quarter-final but if the change to the split season passes and you push out the inter-county season to the middle of August, it\u2019s goodbye to the underage dual player in Galway, that\u2019s for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The underage scene in Galway will become a summer \u201cwasteland\u201d if All-Ireland minor finals return as curtain-raisers to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":314425,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1965,1128,61,60,850,112],"class_list":["post-314424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-hurling","tag-football","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sport","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}