Ulster final set for Croke Park again

The Ulster football final will be returning to Croke Park. Last night's meeting of the Ulster Council decided that the final could be brought forward a week in order to allow it be accommodated by Croke Park, so the game will now take place on Sunday, July 10th as opposed to the original date of July 17th.

Last year's final between Armagh and Donegal was moved from its traditional setting of Clones and played outside the province for the first time. That decision wasn't greeted with unanimous approval, but was proven entirely justified when an impressive 67,136 showed up at Croke Park for a game easily won by Armagh. Clones has a capacity of just 36,000.

The main stumbling block this year was the fact that the Leinster football final was also down for July 17th and was always going to be played at Croke Park. The Ulster Council had the option of playing their final there on the Saturday, but instead have moved it a week forward, and the Ulster minor final will act as the curtain raiser.

Meanwhile, The GAA won't be revisiting this weekend's qualifying fixtures despite the concerns of the Waterford County Board over the choice of Dr Cullen Park in Carlow as the venue for their hurling qualifier with Offaly. That forms a double bill with the Carlow-Offaly football qualifier, but the chairman of the central games administration committee, Tony O'Keeffe, said yesterday the Carlow venue was deemed adequate to meet the spectator demands of the two matches.

"We looked at it closely but we were happy to go with it," said O'Keeffe. "The main issue really was Offaly, because they were entitled to a home venue in the hurling qualifier. Birr was seen as unsuitable, so they proposed the Carlow venue instead, and that suited us.

"Birr could only host between 7-8,000, which wasn't suitable for a hurling match with Waterford, but the capacity for Dr Cullen Park is around 20,000, and we were pleased with that figure."

Carlow secretary Tommy O'Neill also rejected suggestions Dr Cullen Park could not cater for the sort of crowd some Waterford officials were talking about: "We would have no problem accommodating a crowd of 20,000," said O'Neill. "We had 19,800 here for the All-Ireland minor football semi-final between Dublin and Laois two years ago and there were absolutely no problems."

O'Keeffe, meanwhile, also confirmed the two postponed qualifier fixtures will take place on Saturday week. Wicklow await the losers of Saturday's Ulster quarter-final replay between Armagh and Donegal, while Limerick sought the postponement of their first hurling qualifier because of the dual players involved in this Sunday's Munster football semi-final against Kerry.

Rounds two and three of the hurling qualifiers will be played on July 2nd and 9th respectively.

Finally, tickets for Sunday's Leinster football semi-finals - Laois v Kildare (2.15) and Dublin v Wexford (4.05) - will go on sale from Croke Park tomorrow from 11am-7pm. Stand tickets are €25 and Hill 16 tickets €15.