Tipperary Ladies Football Captain reacts to LGFA 2020 championship announcement

The captain of Tipperary’s Senior Ladies Football team says they’re relishing the chance to get back on the pitch now.

Yesterday afternoon, the LGFA beat the rest of the sporting organisations to the punch by annoucing their revised formats for the 2020 All-Ireland championship.

It will be contested by 12 counties with four groups of three teams to battle it out in separate round-robin groups.

Tipperary’s last game before the lockdown saw them suffer a defeat at the hands of last year’s runners-up, Galway on March 8th.

Speaking to Tipp FM Sport this morning, captain Samantha Lambert says they’re happy with yesterday’s announcement:

“Yeah look, it’s great to be back playing football and to see a format in place. I suppose, it’s a format that we were used to there in 2018 – we played Donegal and Kerry in the championship.

“They were calling it ‘the group of death’ at that stage and we were unfortunate to get two top-class teams. We lost to them by a small margin.

“But no matter what group that we get this year, it’s going to be a tough group and we’re just going to have to embrace it.

“That’s where we wanted to be this year – we wanted to be up playing senior against the top teams in the country.”

The LGFA’s full statement can be read below:

LGFA Press Release

Formats decided for 2020 TG4 All-Ireland Ladies Football Championships

Friday, June 19, 2020

THE formts for the 2020 TG4 All-Ireland Junior, Intermediate and Senior Ladies Football Championships have been ratified – and the draws will take place on Tuesday evening, June 30.

The 2020 Senior Championship will be contested by 12 counties – with four groups of three teams each set to battle it out in the round-robin stages.

The top team in each group will progress straight through to the TG4 All-Ireland Senior Championship semi-finals.

The 2019 semi-finalists, namely Champions Dublin, runners-up Galway, and Cork and Mayo, will be seeded and placed in separate round-robin groups.

An open draw will then determine who will join those four teams in the various pools.

The 2020 TG4 All-Ireland Intermediate Championship will be contested by 13 counties – and will also be run off on a round-robin format to determine the four semi-finalists.

There will be three groups of three teams, and one group of four, in the qualifier phase, with the top team in each group progressing to the last four of the competition.

Westmeath, who were relegated from the TG4 Senior Championship in 2019, are one of the seeded teams, along with Meath, the 2019 Intermediate Championship runners-up, and last year’s beaten semi-finalists Roscommon and Sligo.

Six counties, meanwhile, will compete in the 2020 TG4 All-Ireland Junior Championship – Antrim, Derry, Fermanagh (the 2019 runners-up), Carlow, Wicklow and Limerick.

An open draw will take place to make up two groups of three teams – with the top two teams in each pool then progressing to the semi-finals.

It is envisaged that each Championship will be played off over seven weekends, with a two-week break between the conclusion of the group phases and the All-Ireland semi-finals, and a further two-week break between the semi-finals and Finals.

The dates for the round-robin fixtures, and the All-Ireland semi-finals and Finals, will be agreed upon and circulated in due course. Further details relating to the running of the Championships will also be finalised shortly.

 

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