Fixture Congestion and re-fixtures [D1/D2]
OCC has had a number of comments in recent days on the above subjects. It is felt that a note on the website about the matter would be appropriate.
Most of what is happening recently comes about through two causes
- The decision this year to have all Division 1 and 2 Leinster competitions at weekends. This was clearly something clubs wanted and on the whole it appears to be welcomed. A pretty well inevitable consequence, which was pointed out in the winter months, is that when one adds in Irish Senior Cup, National Cup, various forms of Interprovincials and Internationals, one has very little room to manoeuvre. A consequence of this is that when weather interruptions occur, as happened with the Irish Senior Cup/National Cup, there are knock-on effects which mean other dates have to be changed and clubs plans may be affected.
Unfortunately with the climate we live in, these sort of happenings are pretty well inevitable and it is hard to see what could be done to avoid them. If anyone has any ideas, we would be delighted to hear them.
- Some years ago we brought in a system of refixtures for washed out / no result Division 1 and 2 league fixtures. Various schemes had been tried over the years - e.g. continuations, fixtures null and void with league positions determined on percentages or 8 points for each team with no re-fixture. None of these were popular. Thus the system brought in allowed for T20 refixes to be held within a month. Our feeling is that the basic idea of such refixtures has been welcomed and is seen to be working. What is clearly not working is the feature that means it is up to the clubs involved to agree a date. The hope had been and indeed the regulations specify that the refixing process should begin immediately and OCC should be kept informed at all stages. Experience is that what happens is that clubs do nothing for the first week and then enter into a type of “who blinks first” process of only being available on dates that it knows won’t suit the other team. Eventually some compromise is reached in the last available week but this can cause congestion difficulties particularly when one has several no result days in quick succession as happened in late May/early June.
We are where we are for this year, but possibly some system of specified reserve dates could alleviate this problem in future. That would also address the particular problem with Dublin University fixtures. They have been fortunate in the past few years in that any ‘no results’ were early in the season and were refixed in May. The washed out dates this year meant that refixes ended up after their last scheduled fixture. Definite reserve dates could resolve that except of course in the case of their final scheduled fixture being washed out. Even if that happened however the specified refix date could be within a few days.
I trust that that this assists at least in showing that OCC is aware of and thinking about these things.
Michael Sharp
Secretary OCC