Replays back on the agenda in club championships

REPLAYS are set to make their return in this year’s Connolly’s of Moy Tyrone Club Championships after a hiatus of a few years.

Tyrone Club Championship matches have been finished on the day since 2020 with penalty shoot-outs necessitated if teams were still level at the end of extra-time. Indeed, Dungannon Clarkes won their first O’Neill Cup in 64 years with a shoot-out victory over the then-reigning champions Trillick in 2020.

The Tyrone CCC has now decided that replays will apply from the quarter-finals onwards in this year’s championships, though it has yet to be firmed up whether extra-time will still apply in the event of drawn encounters on their first day out.

If the proposed dates stay as they are, the Championships will commence with the Junior Preliminary Round meeting of Augher and Glenelly on Saturday, September 2. Our Intermediate and Senior footballers will have to wait a little while longer with their first-round clashes set to be played off in a five-day period between Thursday, September 21 and Monday, September 25.

There will be a one-week gap for all the first-round winners before the quarter-finals, after which there will be a fortnight’s break between matches.

The Junior Championship championship final will take place on Sunday, October 22, while the Intermediate Championship decider has been provisionally pencilled in for Saturday, October 28, a day before the Senior Championship showdown.

Club players now face a busy period to get their respective leagues wrapped up before the championships get underway, especially in Division Three with some teams still having eight games left to play less than two months out from the start of their championship campaign. Topping their respective tables at this mid-way point are Dromore (Division One), Clonoe (Division Two) and Cookstown/Fintona (Division Three).