The 2017 independent.ie Fitzgibbon Cup was the 101st staging of the Fitzgibbon Cup since its establishment in 1912. The semi-finals and final were hosted by NUI Galway on 24 and 25 February 2017. Mary I retained the title after a 3–24 to 1–19 win against IT Carlow in the final.

Format

Group stage

Sixteen institutes of higher education compete in groups of four. Each team in a group plays all the other teams in the group once. Two points are awarded for a win and one for a draw.

Knockout stage

The four group winners play the four group runners-up in the quarter-finals. The semi-finals and final are played over a single weekend, usually the last Friday and Saturday in February.

Group stage Group A

{| class="wikitable" !width=20| !width=150 style="text-align:left;"|Team !width=20| !width=20| !width=20| !width=20| !width=40| !width=50| !width=20| !width=20| |- |1||align=left| Mary I Limerick ||3||2||1||0||7-77||1-42||53||5 |- |2||align=left| IT Carlow ||3||2||1||0||10-56||1-44||39||5

|3||align=left| DIT ||3||1||0||2||5-38||9-57||-31||2 |- |4||align=left| GMIT ||3||0||0||3||0-38||11-66||-61||0

Group B

{| class="wikitable" !width=20| !width=150 style="text-align:left;"|Team !width=20| !width=20| !width=20| !width=20| !width=40| !width=50| !width=20| !width=20| |- |1||align=left| UL ||2||2||0||0||4-44||2-28||22||4 |- |2||align=left| NUI Galway ||2||1||0||1||6-26||3-33||2||2 |- |3||align=left| CIT ||2||1||0||1||1-30||2-31||-2||2 |- |4||align=left| DCU St Patricks Campus ||2||0||0||2||1-18||5-28||-22||0

Group C

{| class="wikitable" !width=20| !width=150 style="text-align:left;"|Team !width=20| !width=20| !width=20| !width=20| !width=40| !width=50| !width=20| !width=20| |- |1||align=left| Limerick IT ||2||2||0||0||6-33||0-22||29||4 |- |2||align=left| WIT ||2||1||0||1||5-25||2-22||12||2 |- |3||align=left| DCU Dóchas Éireann ||2||1||0||1||1-29||3-22||1||2 |- |4||align=left| Trinity College Dublin ||2||0||0||2||1-15||8-36||-42||0

Group D

{| class="wikitable" !width=20| !width=150 style="text-align:left;"|Team !width=20| !width=20| !width=20| !width=20| !width=40| !width=50| !width=20| !width=20| |- |1||align=left| UCC ||3||3||0||0||6-43||3-23||29||6

|2||align=left| UCD ||3||2||0||1||2-51||1-26||28||4 |- |3||align=left| Maynooth University ||3||1||0||2||4-50||1-50||9||2 |- |4||align=left| UUJ ||3||0||0||3||3-16||10-61||-66||0

Knockout stage

Quarter-finals Group winners had home advantage for the quarter-finals.

Semi-finals

Final

Awards Team of the Year Enda Rowland David Sweeney Damien Healy Dwayne Palmer Conor Twomey Ronan Maher Willie Connors Stephen Cahill Michael Breen Darragh O'Donovan Michael O'Neill Cian Lynch Aaron Gillane Stephen Maher John Hetherton

References

External links gaa.ie Higher Education Fixtures