BANAGHER'S chairman believes the club has acted "to protect the community" by cancelling underage training after a member returned a positive test for Covid-19 yesterday.
The GAA had advised the north Derry club to continue as normal before the weekend but Justin Quirk said that they had closed down anyway: "We thought we had a responsibility to the community, so that's the approach we took."
Quirk said there was some "uneasiness" when the St Mary's club took that action on Thursday night, as did Craigbane, to be followed by eight other nearby clubs on Friday.
However, that precautionary action has proved justified, even though the symptoms of the member who tested positive were "really mild".
The Irish News understands that the member is a dual player, which could have implications for the nearby Drum club, some of whose players hurl with Banagher, and that he also plays soccer with Dungiven Celtic. St Colm's, Drum have extended their closedown until Monday July 27 as a consequence.
Melbourne native Quirk, who has been with Banagher for 18 years, commented: "The difficult thing is that volunteers have been put in a pretty precarious position where we have to make decisions that we probably shouldn't have to make."
Banagher are acting on advice from the Public Health Agency, with their chairman explaining: "We've shut down our underage just to try to limit the amount of people coming into our ground. Although our sessions were well spread out we didn't feel comfortable with the amount of people coming in.
"The majority of our players have been tested [on Sunday] and will have the results [today]. We won't let any of them back in through the gate until they had a Covid-19 test and it returns negative…
"We're only going to let our senior players train, with the footballers/hurlers training on different nights from the camogs. They won't be able to re-start activity until they have a test done and it comes back negative. If they don't have that they won't be able to train or play, won't be allowed in the grounds at all."
However, Quirk is confident that the club's opening Derry SHC round robin match against Eoghan Rua, Coleraine will go ahead as planned this coming Saturday; also in Group B are Swatragh and Kevin Lynch's (Dungiven).
"Oh, that will go ahead, definitely. There's no spectators at this stage. We're waiting on the NI Executive to change that."
Having said that, he feels that there's little point in games without supporters present: "I don't think so, personally. I think the games revolve around the spectators...It doesn't seem right if you can't have a crowd at it, although I know the players want to play."
Banagher were one of 10 north Derry clubs to temporarily close down after an outbreak linked to a social gathering at a house in Limavady last week.
"There was a general outbreak in the community so we took it upon ourselves to protect the community more than anything else," said Quirk.
"The first round of Covid-19 we didn't have any reports in the community or in the club of anybody that had it – all of a sudden there was an outbreak of four people in a day, which was really alarming.
"Feeny and Park is only a really small area, we're a small rural club. We just wanted to let it settle and see what transpired, see if there were any further outbreaks, and limit it for the weekend. That was our original plan, which went against the GAA guidelines, which said it was fine to stay open.
"We thought we had a responsibility to the community, so that's the approach we took."
That has turned out to be eminently sensible, with Quirk concluding: "There was a bit of uneasiness there but that was the decision we made. At that stage there wasn't any member of the club involved – but then we had a positive test come back today [Sunday].
"We followed the Public Health Agency's advice. They are doing track and trace on anybody who came into contact with this member in the 48 hours prior to the test."
* Meanwhile an Armagh Intermediate League game between St Paul's and Culloville in Lurgan was abandoned midway through the second half, with the visitors leading by 0-11 to 0-8, reportedly due to a biting incident.
