Dublin demand leads to likely first full house

GAA: IT TOOK a while but Dublin football appears to have restored all its hype – with Sunday's All-Ireland semi-final against Donegal setting up Croke Park's first capacity crowd of the year.

It is by all accounts already an 82,300 sell-out, with Dublin chairman Andy Kettle confirming yesterday that their allocation of match tickets were “well and truly gone” and that a request for an extra allocation couldn’t be met, such was the general demand.

“It’s a virtual sell-out already, as far as we know,” said Kettle. “All our ticket allocations through the various channels are well and truly gone. You hate to see the genuine club members missing out.

“At this time of the year they could have been away on holidays or whatever but unfortunately our entire allocation is gone, and no extra tickets are being made available to us at this stage.”

Croke Park’s biggest attendance so far this year remains the 58,723 that showed up for the Leinster semi-final double bill, which also included Dublin against Kildare – although Dublin attendances have been somewhat disappointing since, with only 49,983 showing up for Dublin’s Leinster final win over Wexford.

Also fuelling Dublin’s huge demand for tickets is the fact their minor footballers are also contesting their semi-final in Croke Park on Sunday, when they play Galway – looking to join their minor hurling counterparts, and also under-21 hurling counterparts, who have already booked a place in their respective All-Ireland finals.

The Dublin seniors, should they beat Donegal, would complete the four-final sweep, and create a first All-Ireland senior football showdown with Kerry since 1985: “Hopefully our side of the hill will get value for money,” added Kettle. “I would also encourage all Dublin supporters to come in early and get behind our minors.

“I would have a lot of faith in this Dublin minor team. They’re certainly as good as I’ve seen in quite a while.”

In the meantime Dublin are coming under increasing pressure to complete their club championships in both football and hurling, which have effectively been on hold in recent weeks.

A meeting was planned for this evening to address the hurling backlog, and potentially adopt a knock-out format for this year, but this was postponed until next week due to the death of Dublin CCC member James Foran.

“James Foran was chairman of our CCC,” explained Kettle, “which would have the committee handling our championship fixtures. So it certainly wouldn’t have been the proper thing to do, to go ahead with any meeting this week.

“But right now our club hurling championship is played on a round robin basis, and what we’re trying to do is get it played onto a straight knock-out. But it’s all dependent on club agreement. The only way the make-up of the competition can be changed now is by agreement of the clubs, and then a motion to next county committee meeting. But that won’t now be looked until next week.

“And it would be just for this year, with a review then later on. Proposals would probably come from the hurling committee on hurling championship for next year, and likewise from the football committee.”

The Dublin football champions are due to play the Meath champions on October 23rd, while the Dublin hurling champions are due out on October 30th against the Westmeath champions.

Yet Dublin’s football championship is yet to complete the second round, with round three being a 16-team round, with the eight winners there going on to round four, to meet the double winners of the second round.

So the prospect of Dublin failing to fulfil these dates remains very real, and yet Kettle remains hopeful that the Leinster Council might still give them some leeway.

“We’ve already appealed to the Leinster Council, and they’ve turned us down. But it’s not that we wouldn’t go back again. Maybe they took that it’s a little bit early to be doing anything, but they’re my words, not theirs.”

What is certain is Dublin’s All-Ireland under-21 hurling final against Galway will be played in Thurles on Saturday, September 10th – not Croke Park – as was agreed earlier this year (unless Tipperary are involved).

“We’re happy with that,” said Kettle, “although we’d have preferred if our semi-final against Antrim last Saturday was played in Thurles as well, as Galway have the advantage now of having played their semi-final there.

“But the CCCC made the decision, and that’s fine. This is a very good Galway team, and they will be formidable opponents, no doubt about it.”

Meanwhile, Tyrone’s Seán Cavanagh has been ruled out for the remainder of the club season after suffering a detached tendon in his shoulder due a weight-lifting session, and will thus also miss out on Ireland’s International Rules series with Australia in October.