This article is from page 104 of the 2008-03-04 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 104 JPG
CLARE’S bid to overturn last year’s controversial decision to end the Open Draw in the Munster Senior Football Championship was quashed at the Munster Council convention last Friday night, but it didn’t stop Noel Walsh from venting his views on the subject.
The former Munster Council chair- man and GAA presidential candidate, who has been an Open Draw loyalist over the past 40 years, launched a
broadside against Munster Council rulers over the decision to seed Kerry and Cork to meet in the 2008 provin- cial decider.
“In the interests of fairness there should be an Open Draw,” Walsh told delegates to the annual conven- tion in the West County Hotel in En- nis. “In every other province there is an Open Draw. It would give players from the four weaker counties an opportunity of playing in a Munster football final.
‘There was great finance taken in
by the council when the Open Draw was there from 1991. Under the seed- ed draw, there was only one gate and that was the Munster final between Kerry and Cork,” he added.
Walsh made his comments, despite the fact that a Clare motion calling for “the Senior Football Champion- ship in Munster in 2009 to be run on the basis of an Open Draw” was ruled out of order.
“We wont have any discussion because the motion is out of order,” confirmed secretary, Simon Moro-
ney to delegates.
“This decision was arrived demo- cratically and on the night the vote was taken the counties voted the way they were instructed to,’ added chairman Jimmy O’Gorman from Waterford.
However, Walsh countered by say- ing “while democracy is important, justice 1s more important”’.