The Leinster club football final will be postponed by a week if Naas go on to reach the hurling decider this weekend.
As it stands, the two finals are due to form a Croke Park double header on Saturday, December 2, with Naas already through to the football showpiece against holders Kilmacud Crokes following their respective wins over St Loman’s and St Mary’s, Ardee last Sunday.
Meanwhile, Naas are also bidding to become the first Kildare club to reach a Leinster senior hurling final when they face Dublin champions Na Fianna on Saturday and have three dual players in their ranks - Brian Byrne, James Burke and Daire Guerin.
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The game was due to be played at Hawkfield, Kildare’s training facility, with St Conleth’s Park under reconstruction but has now been switched to Portlaoise after tickets quickly sold out.
Given that the All-Ireland club hurling semi-finals are due to be played before Christmas (December 16/17) and the football semi-finals won’t take place until the new year (January 6/7), moving the provincial hurling final isn’t really an option for the Leinster Council should Naas find themselves in both deciders.
But because of the wriggle room with the football final, it would be pushed back to Saturday, December 9 if Naas hurlers were to prevail on Saturday.
Should that come to pass, it would be the second successive year that a club has reached both Leinster senior finals, after Crokes’ own double bid last year fell short.
With Brian Sheehy their only dual player and not a regular starter for the footballers, the finals went ahead as a Croke Park double bill and Sheehy played the full game in the hurlers’ defeat to Ballyhale Shamrocks but then wasn’t used in the footballers’ win over The Downs.
The only previous occasion that the same club reached both finals was back in 1987, when Portlaoise beat Parnells in a replay to win the fifth of their seven provincial football titles but they lost the hurling final to Rathnure.
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