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Was talking to a club manager over the weekend.
2 players went to EP, a couple of others took the week for their own holidays not EP.
But 4 players now are informing him they've tickets for Katie Taylor fight next Saturday and not sure of availability!
Maybe we should get another weekend off?
tearintom (Wexford) - Posts: 1688 - 31/08/2026 16:39:05
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Replying To Pikeman96: "@Formertownie - I'm all in favour of a free weekend if the calendar allows it, for all the reasons you mention. I'm just not sure I'll ever be convinced that the best way of using the free weekend is to arrange it around when a minority of players would like to go to a music festival.
I'd suggest a more "natural" break this year would have been to play Round 5 football on the weekend just gone by, and then use next weekend as the free one after the groups were completed in both codes and before moving into the knockout stages." It is a minority of players, but a pretty significant minority at the same time. It would affect alot of clubs ability to field second teams after it.
Viking66 (Wexford) - Posts: 20629 - 31/08/2026 16:55:48
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Replying To Formertownie: " Replying To Pikeman96: "@Formertownie - I'm all in favour of a free weekend if the calendar allows it, for all the reasons you mention. I'm just not sure I'll ever be convinced that the best way of using the free weekend is to arrange it around when a minority of players would like to go to a music festival.
I'd suggest a more "natural" break this year would have been to play Round 5 football on the weekend just gone by, and then use next weekend as the free one after the groups were completed in both codes and before moving into the knockout stages." In an ideal world ye that would ve been better. Only good thing is there is something riding on all football matches this weekend . Would prefer no prelim in hzrling as too long break between end of rould robin and 1 /4 final .. Be interesting to see on a poll of players done anonymously if a free weekend which weekend they would pick . To be off if they only had one weekend to choose. And i woukd agree there will cine a time it wont be feasible . Funny thing is its never fallen on a hurling weekend . Future planning by co board ?."
Viking66 (Wexford) - Posts: 20629 - 31/08/2026 16:58:18
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@Formertownie - that thing about "has never fallen on a hurling weekend" is thrown out from time to time all right, but what people either don't consider or don't realise is:
- Fell on a football weekend in 2022 and 2023 because we still had our hurling/football split season at the time, and the hurling was already finished by the time EP came round in the September of those years.
- 2024, if it hadn't been for the Fleadh in Wexford, the club championships would probably have started a week later because we wouldn't have needed the other free weekend. And in that case, EP weekend would have been Round 4 Hurling.
- 2025, the original fixtures plan had Round 5 Hurling marked in for EP weekend. It was only when both county hurlers and footballers went out early that we could start the club championships a week earlier than anticipated, and so free up the EP weekend as well as a free weekend for the Fleadh.
- If either our county hurlers or footballers had gone further this year and ended up playing but losing on weekend of June 20/21 (i.e. if hurlers had come third in Leinster but then lost All-Ireland quarter-final, or if footballers reached but lost Tailteann semi), then club championships would have started a week later, and the weekend just gone by would have been Hurling Round 5.
- Under another "contingency plan" for this year (i.e. hurlers reach but lose All-Ireland semi-final, and/or footballers reach Tailteann Final), the weekend just gone would have been Hurling Round 4.
There's no big conspiracy to engineer things such that EP weekend is always a football weekend. Obviously it fell that way while we had the 'split season'. But both this year and last year, if either of our county teams had gone further, EP weekend would have been hurling.
Pikeman96 (Wexford) - Posts: 3974 - 31/08/2026 19:05:04
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Replying To tearintom: "Was talking to a club manager over the weekend.
2 players went to EP, a couple of others took the week for their own holidays not EP.
But 4 players now are informing him they've tickets for Katie Taylor fight next Saturday and not sure of availability!
Maybe we should get another weekend off?" I literally laughed out loud at this one. :D
Pikeman96 (Wexford) - Posts: 3974 - 31/08/2026 19:07:43
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30 years to the day since Wexford won the All Ireland in 1996. Great memories.
wexford2012 (Wexford) - Posts: 147 - 01/09/2026 15:45:53
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Replying To wexford2012: "30 years to the day since Wexford won the All Ireland in 1996. Great memories." Hard to believe 68 to 96 is a shorter Gap than 96 to now.....
If somebody told me then that we wouldn't reach another final for 30 years I'd never have believed it.
Still not over 19.....
Doylerwex (Wexford) - Posts: 4653 - 01/09/2026 22:35:41
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Replying To Doylerwex: "Hard to believe 68 to 96 is a shorter Gap than 96 to now.....
If somebody told me then that we wouldn't reach another final for 30 years I'd never have believed it.
Still not over 19....." I'm the same.
I still remember how as the homecoming was winding down on the Monday night (or more accurately, around 3 a.m. on the Tuesday moring!), I looked around and thought "we'll never see the likes of it again. Not unless we have to wait another 28 years anyway. And surely we'll never have to wait 28 years again."
But here we are.
Pikeman96 (Wexford) - Posts: 3974 - 02/09/2026 10:08:04
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The way we are going it might be another 28. Be glad you saw one, I was born in 1996 and don't see one soon.
StoreysTash (Wexford) - Posts: 2169 - 03/09/2026 11:46:25
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Replying To tearintom: "Was talking to a club manager over the weekend.
2 players went to EP, a couple of others took the week for their own holidays not EP.
But 4 players now are informing him they've tickets for Katie Taylor fight next Saturday and not sure of availability!
Maybe we should get another weekend off?" Imagine, players want to do something other than play football. Jesus wept.
StoreysTash (Wexford) - Posts: 2169 - 03/09/2026 11:47:19
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Replying To Pikeman96: "@Formertownie - I'm all in favour of a free weekend if the calendar allows it, for all the reasons you mention. I'm just not sure I'll ever be convinced that the best way of using the free weekend is to arrange it around when a minority of players would like to go to a music festival.
I'd suggest a more "natural" break this year would have been to play Round 5 football on the weekend just gone by, and then use next weekend as the free one after the groups were completed in both codes and before moving into the knockout stages." Would Wexford have enough referees, pitches, etc to play them all on Thursday night?
It would need every match the weekend before played before Saturday, just from a player welfare front.
StoreysTash (Wexford) - Posts: 2169 - 03/09/2026 11:49:45
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@StoreysTash - there'd be absolutely no hope of playing them all on the same evening. Probably most obvious difficulty is how that'd mean many clubs having their first and second teams in action in different places at the same time, and in some cases, a third team being in action too.
Another obvious difficulty is the level of volunteerism needed to run matches. In the top three grades, there'd be 18 matches that would need 18 neutral venues, as you couldn't run double-headers. If it was Round 5, you'd need 30 neutral venues. You'd obviously use Wexford Park and St. Patrick's Park but you'd still need either 16 or 28 club venues where it falls to the host club to manage things by way of car park stewarding, operating the scoreboard, opening the dressing rooms, tidying up and closing up afterwards, etc.
Can be difficult enough in some places to get the required number of volunteers at the best of times but would be next to impossible if that club was itself playing somewhere else at the same time. Anyone who might normally volunteer to help with car parking (for example) would much rather be off somewhere else to watch their own team play.
Even running them over two evenings (let's say Wednesday and Thursday) would cause issues. One would be the knock-on effect on the Minor and U14 championships that normally run on those days.
Another would be the effect on regular club activity in the venues used. Say there's an attractive senior match put into somewhere like Oylegate or Farmleigh on a Wednesday evening. And say that normally on a Wednesday evening, those places have a couple of underage GAA squads and a couple of camogie/LGFA squads training. You'd basically be telling all those players "sorry, you can't train as usual this week, because the field will be too busy".
There's been a full round of midweek matches in the past all right, but not for about ten years or more now, and all those issues arose then too. Am sure the fixtures people would be keen to avoid them arising again, unless there really was no alternative.
Pikeman96 (Wexford) - Posts: 3974 - 03/09/2026 14:43:50
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Replying To StoreysTash: "Imagine, players want to do something other than play football. Jesus wept." Well they have a choice. We were told players love the split season because they could plan for holidays/concerts in the summer.
Seems like some don't love their clubs as much as they pretend!
richiepmurphy (Kilkenny) - Posts: 162 - 03/09/2026 17:16:04
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