Camogie All-Star trip to Canada cancelled due to player unrest

Ashling Thompson of Cork

Colm Keys

The PwC camogie All-Star tour to Canada, scheduled for May, has been cancelled.

The Camogie Association has informed counties that the planned six-day tour will not now go ahead after Cork's All-Star winners made it clear that they would not be travelling in such proximity to the championship.

That position was also subsequently taken by players from Kilkenny, Galway and Waterford, the other three teams that would have made up the touring party.

The seven Cork players had made it clear that they would not be prepared to leave their other team-mates to commit to the tour to Calgary between May 19 and May 25.

The Gaelic Players Association were involved in negotiations and it is believed that an alternative date, just after the conclusion of the championship in August or later in the year, November/December, was sought.

But a decision was taken late last week to cancel the tour completely and not seek that alternative which, they are understood to have felt, would have impacted too greatly on the club programme.

The camogie championship starts in June and Cork players are adamant that two weeks out from that was too late to travel when championship preparations would have been intensifying.

The Canadian GAA were hosting the tour and planned a match on Sunday May 21 with a invitational tour on the Saturday before.