GAELIC GAMES NEWS ROUND-UP:INDICATIONS ARE that Sunday's big Leinster football meeting of Dublin and Meath will not sell out with around 65,000 projected to attend.
So far, 40,000 tickets have been sold for the quarter-final, which is on a double bill with the Dublin-Antrim hurling championship fixture. Although it’s not possible to identify which of the Dublin supporters are primarily interested in the hurling, interest from Antrim has been weak.
The estimate would be considerably down on the two near-capacity crowds that rolled up for the draw and replay between Dublin and Meath two years ago.
“It’s been slow so far but maybe when the build-up starts this week, it will pick up,” said Leinster chief executive Michael Delaney, who pointed out when the same counties met in the football championship two years ago there was a late surge. “Near the end it improved and in the last week you still expect that there can be more sales. At the moment, though, we’re calling it at 65,000 although you’d hope for a full house as it’s the glamour tie in Leinster. There’s about 40,000 gone and we’d be expecting another 25,000 in the last week.”
The hurling match brings together Anthony Daly’s Dublin, who have a growing reputation as a team going places after comfortably retaining their Division One status in the National League, and the Ulster champions, who are making their senior debut in Leinster as part of the restructured provincial championship. According to Delaney the move doesn’t appear so far to have excited major interest in the north and the match itself hasn’t had a high profile.
“Sales are very slow so far in Antrim. I don’t know whether the tickets have been distributed through the clubs up there but at the moment there hasn’t been much interest. There’s been very little so far about the Dublin-Antrim tie.”
Meath PRO Brendan Cummins’s experience of the fixture goes back 20 years, including the epic four-match series in 1991. He believes that in the current economic climate the projected attendance wouldn’t be disappointing.
“I wouldn’t be downbeat about 65,000. That’s a good crowd in the circumstances. Factor in the recessionary times – it’s a costly day out for a family – and the impact of having the games so easily accessible on television. We can’t have huge viewerships and huge crowds on a continual basis. Something’s got to give.
“Two years ago there was still the lingering novelty value of the new Croke Park and remember it’s not too long ago that 50,000 was a good crowd for Dublin and Meath.”
Since the redevelopment of Croke Park, however, the attendances have all been over 60,000. Nonetheless, 65,000 was the level of interest in both 2002 (65,868) and 2005 (65,846) before the crowds jumped two years ago to 78,002 for the drawn match and 82,200 for the replay.
According to Cummins, Meath have just one injury concern, aside from the long-term absence of Shane O’Rourke, and manager Eamon O’Brien should have a largely full hand when the team is selected either tonight or Thursday.
“Nearly everybody’s okay and Brian Farrell is the only real concern. He didn’t take a full part in training last Thursday but there’s a reasonably good chance that he’ll be available so we’ll probably have a clean bill of health.
“I think the mood in the county is quite optimistic. The team picked up in the league and though it’s not enough to say that the blue jersey inevitably brings out the best in Meath the feeling is that you couldn’t rule us out.”
Finally, details of the Leinster hurling championship semi-final draw will emerge after the Dublin-Meath match on Sunday when the winners of Antrim-Dublin go into the hat with champions Kilkenny, Galway and Wexford.
The two matches will be staged on Saturday and Sunday, 20th and 21st of this month, at venues to be decided but Croke Park will not be used for either. Galway’s semi-final is expected to be fixed for the Saturday with the other match taking place the following day.
