By Cian O'Connell

GAA President Larry McCarthy was satisfied that the motion proposing a new All Ireland SFC format was carried at Congress on Saturday.

Several delegates spoke in favour of the motion with GAA President McCarthy encouraged that it received significant support.

McCarthy said: “Was that the highest vote of the day? It was close enough to it anyway, it was 97%, wasn’t it?

"That’s great, obviously. It means there is huge consensus with it. After Special Congress, that is what they looked for and we came back and the committee was able to put something together that was acceptable to the general membership, which is great.

"Looking forward then as a consequence to that, post this year’s Tailteann Cup which will be excellent, and then going forward into the new system next year."

Overall McCarthy was happy with how Congress unfolded at the NUI Galway Connacht GAA Air Dome.

“A lot of motions passed but we got through the business of the day," he responded.

"As you know, we started this in pre-Covid days and we had to put it together but there was a lot of work done, in fairness. A lot of good things."

McCarthy was also asked about the failure of the motion to introduce an inter-county U19 Championship.

"I said that earlier probably a lack of detail was our weakness, whatever number of pages came out of the rule book were going to be replaced in Congress terms by two lines," he responded.

"We probably hadn't explained that properly and deeply enough. One of the concerns was when it was going to be run in terms of time frame.

"My understanding was that it was going to be run in the U20 slot that exists at the moment.

"It has least interference with the Higher Education at one end and secondary schools and running into club stuff later in the year."