They came within a whisker of shocking Roscommon when a Sean Kilbride beat the Americans. New York almost did the unthinkable - their margin of loss in the championship for the last five years was at least 16 points.
Given the desire to grow the game outside the 32 counties with hosting GAA events in Dubai, and inviting London and New York into the championship - it would probably be a good thing if New York starting winning games.
But then again, the prospect of New York winning a game and continuing on in the tournament would create a lot of logistical issues - not least put a financial burden on the Connacht council to make sure they got to the next round's venue. With their history - is it wise to budget for something like that?
Connacht council secretary John Prenty admitted that it would be a huge cost to the council should they win, and he that there might be some issues that arise from a New York victory:
You'd have to take it at face value that if New York won they'd be playing Leitrim in Carrick on Sunday week.
I assume we'd have some kind of row going on at the minute if it did happen. But we'll have to wait until some day it does happen and it will probably cause a problem.
Prenty did move to clarify that he was stopping well short of saying he didn't want New York to record a victory, and was merely pointing out the potential difficulties - now that it doesn't seem so unlikely. He did also point out that this isn't like when London reached the Connacht final.
I wouldn't like to say you'd hope New York wouldn't win but it would be a major financial burden on Connacht if they did win.
Some day they will win and we have got to put up with that. We didn't think London would win but they beat Sligo and Leitrim a couple of years ago and got to a Connacht final.
New York would have logistical difficulties in getting over here to play and this year Leitrim would have had difficulties in getting organised to go over there in a couple of weeks.
See Also: Cathal Cregg Explains Why It Very Nearly Went Tits-Up For Roscommon In New York
Picture credit: Dáire Brennan / SPORTSFILE
