GALWAY STILL HAVE their travel arrangements in place for their opening game in the Connacht championship in New York in May but county board chairman Pat Kearney said they have no idea if the match will take place.

Kearney said that people have bigger priorities and tasks to face at the moment but they have all the preparations in place for the game at Gaelic Park on Sunday, May 3.

“It is completely and utterly outside our control. We have flights and hotel booked but that’s all minor now in the overall scheme of things.

“It is low priority now thinking about New York. There are a lot more important things in everyone’s lives at the moment that need to be looked after,” said Kearney.

He appealed to GAA members to play their role in the community in helping people cope with the coronavirus crisis.

The matches and all that will return in due course. In the meantime there are more urgent and pressing demands and GAA members are well placed in their communities to lead and help with all that.”

The annual game in the Bronx sees each of the five Connacht counties rotate the fixture and there has been a large exodus from the west to the Big Apple each May.

“We believe somewhere between two to three thousand supporters are planning to go. A lot have family living there and it has become a social occasion for all the Connacht counties.

“But in the overall scheme of things it’s small fry compared to what we are going to face. We will just have to wait and see. We are ready for it but at the moment it just seems a long way off with all that’s going on in the world,” added Kearney.