GAA insist player safety paramount as weather impacts weekend action

GAA director of communications Alan Milton said they would be forced to re-examine the current calendar if they got into "real difficulty" with fixtures but insisted that, for the time being, the benefits of the split-season outweigh the problems.

Sunday's All-Ireland club semi-finals went ahead despite seriously adverse weather conditions, most strikingly at Páirc Esler, where the highly anticipated encounter between Glen and Kilmacud Crokes was barely visible to either paying spectators or the large TV audience due to extremely dense fog.

Kilmacud manager Robbie Brennan - whose side surrendered their All-Ireland crown in a dramatic one-point defeat - said it was "a bit of a joke" that the game had gone ahead.

"If that was round two of a local championship, it wouldn't have gone ahead...it wasn't playable," Brennan told reporters afterwards.

Less contentious was the decision to go ahead with the earlier semi-final between St Brigid's and Castlehaven in Semple Stadium, though half the pitch was covered in a layer of white frost throughout the match.

Afterwards, the suggestion arose that the tightness of the current calendar was a factor in deciding whether games should proceed in such conditions, but the GAA insist that player safety remains the paramount concern.

"The final decision comes down to the match official and our primary concern for us as an organisation is the safety and well-being of our players and the match officials on the park," Milton told RTÉ Sport after the game in Newry.

"In this instance, we were very lucky we had a referee of the status and experience of Conor Lane who made the call and he was happy for it to proceed.

"And while it wasn't perfect for viewers at home, I think most of the people, an almost