22 METROSPORT Tuesday, October 13, 2009 D GAA Dubs plan season of lights and action DUBLINS approach to next seasons Allianz football league will literally be as different as night and day. The Leinster champions have opted to play all their home games under lights and, in total, will play four of their seven Division 1 games in the evening. The GAA yesterday confirmed its fixture list for 2010 with Dublin, Cork and Derry all opting for floodlit home fixtures. In contrast, league and All-Ireland holders Kerry have opted to play their home games on Sunday afternoons. Kerrys first game will be against Dublin on Sunday, February 7 at Killarneys Fitzgerald Stadium, the tie that will launch the league. There are pros and cons to playing under lights, said Kerry chairman Jerome Conway. Saturday night games allow the players, management and officials to be able to spend Sunday with their families. The down side is that a lot of these night time games in February and March are very cold for fans to come out in. Thats a big factor for supporters. Still, the GAA will continue to embrace floodlit fixtures with a huge number of Saturday night games pencilled in for next spring. Mayo, Limerick and Tipperary all upgraded their grounds with floodlights this year and will move to later throw-ins. Meanwhile, Kilkenny and Tipperary will get the hurling league underway on February 20 under lights in Thurles, a repeat of the league and All-Ireland deciders. Sen g sticks around SEN g hAilpn says he will answer Corks call for another season if boss Denis Walsh wants him. Legendary hurling defender hAilpn, who will be 33 next year, admits he is not sure if hell be in the managers plans for 2010. But the 2005 All- Ireland winning captain confirmed that if everything goes to plan he will return for another season in an attempt to claim a fourth McCarthy Cup title. Speaking yesterday, hAilpn said his immediate goal is to enjoy a rare winter of content on Leeside following the recent strike crises. To be honest Im not certain about next year because Denis Walsh has yet to name his panel, said hAilpn. Youd always be wary of the fact that a manager, when he sits down to draft his team for training and what not, might not have you in his plans and thats fair enough. He added that Walsh (pictured) may have younger players coming up who might get preference. But if I am part of next year, grand, the mind is willing, the body is willing to give it one more year but its hard to say Ill give it another three years, he concluded. Kerry duo Toms S and Paul Galvin are in the running for the GPAs Player of the year award, which comes with a car valued at 25,000. Just two players were shortlisted compared with three in the Vodafone AllStars scheme, so Cork captain Graham Canty had to make way. But it is not all good news for Kerry who will question why Colm Cooper did not make the shortlist for Team of the year. The Championships top scorer was nominated for an AllStar but has not made the GPAs 45- man shortlist. Meath midfielder Nigel Crawford, left off the AllStars shortlist, is nominated, as are Dublin quartet Stephen Cluxton, Barry Cahill (pictured) and the Brogan brothers. Twelve counties are represented with champions Kerry receiving 11 nominations. eleven players are on the GPA shortlist that are not AllStar nominees Colm Brady and James Loughrey (Antrim), Ger OKane, eoin Bradley (Derry), Peadar Gardiner, ronan McGarrity, Aidan OShea (Mayo), Mikey Conway (Kildare), Nigel Crawford (Meath), Paul Kerrigan (Cork) and David Kelly (Sligo). RUGBY heiNeKeN CuP head- scratcher: Cork hurler Sen g hAilpn (centre) is joined by Leinster rugby duo Fergus McFadden (left) and Jonathan Sexton at the launch of the new Volkswagen Polo in Maynooth, Co. Kildare yesterday Sexton keeping a cool head as Leinster regroupBy DArAGh CONChir NoBoDY is panicking in the Lein- ster camp following Fridays shock opening round Heineken Cup defeat at the hands of London Irish, accord- ing to Jonathan Sexton. The defending champions were stunned 12-9 at the RDS on the tour- naments opening weekend and know they must hit back with a victory in Brive this Saturday. out-half Sexton has heard all about the provinces past futile visits to France but such is his confidence these days that he is at a loss to ex- plain why playing away should be any different to performing at home. Maybe Im just inexperienced but I dont really buy into this away games thing, he said. Its another game and therell be a hostile crowd but the refs are so pro- fessional that its not like therell be a home advantage in that way. Im sure well have a nice group of supporters going over and weve got to bounce back. Its great that we have next week to do that. It would be terrible if we had the two-month gap in the Heineken Cup to think about it the whole time. Hopefully, we can finish this two-week block with a win and move on from it. Victory in Brive will put Leinsters defence back on track ahead of back- to-back meetings with Llanelli Scar- lets in December. The Scarlets beat the French side at the weekend and already have a vic- tory over Leinster to their name in this seasons Magners League. And Sexton believes that such a competitive pool means every team will slip up at some point. He said: Llanelli are a quality side as well and they can do a job on Lon- don Irish this weekend. If they do that and we can win then the groups at a stalemate. Theres going to be results like that. First things first, weve got to go over to Brive and react. Weve bounced back from worse than this before and hopefully we will again. JONAThAN SexTON insists there is no ill- feeling between himself and ronan OGara as the battle for the out-half position on the irish team intensifies ahead of the November internationals. Sexton was pictured making sure that a fallen OGara knew all about his delight during last seasons heineken Cup semi-final win and, with the Leinster man now providing genuine competition for the green jersey, it would be easy to suggest there might be some tension between the pair. But it seems nothing could be further from the truth. Sexton said: The whole do we get on together? comes from the Croke Park incident but, for me, what happens on the pitch stays on the pitch. Theres nothing in it at all. We roomed together at the last ireland training camp and its fine.incumbent: OGara It may be a decade since Ulster became the first Irish province to win the Heineken Cup, but there is plenty of belief in the class of 2009 that a repeat performance is not beyond the realms of possibility. With defending champions Leinster and Munster both going down in Round 1 defeats, it was left to Ulster to keep the flag flying as they downed fellow former winners Bath 26-12 at Ravenhill. Now they will be out to keep that momentum rolling with a trip to Murrayfield to take on Edinburgh but they will be wary of a Scottish team wounded by the size of their 31-7 defeat by Stade Franais. We have had a good start but we have to keep our feet on the ground because Edinburgh is a place where we always have a tight game, said Ireland flanker Stephen Ferris. they are a dangerous side and we will need to close them down and play like we did against Bath. It was a fantastic start for us. We just need to keep the ball rolling now. Getting the result was the most important thing. But we have to stay on an even keel and not get ahead of ourselves we have won one game, not the Heineken Cup. Ferris: Lets build on winning start index.html2.html3.html4.html5.html6.html7.html8.html9.html10.html11.html12.html13.html14.html15.html16.html17.html18.html19.html20.html21.html22.html23.html