GAA:DUBLIN COUNTY board chairman Andy Kettle has questioned the scheduling of Sunday's Leinster senior and minor football finals at Croke Park. Kettle believes the 2pm throw-in for Dublin's game against Wexford, coupled with live television, means only 50,000 will attend as the Dublin walk-up crowd are accustomed to 4pm starts.
He also believes the minor decider between Dublin and Meath should be switched from noon to after the senior match.
“This minor team has some excellent footballers and I’m sure some of them will be seen very much going forward, guys like Ciarán Kilkenny, Eric Lowndes, Emmet Ó Conghaile, they are excellent footballers. There are others as well. (Dublin minor manager) Dessie Farrell has them in top-class shape and we would be very hopeful this minor team might be figuring on the third Sunday in September.
“Unfortunately when the powers that be sit down at the start of the year to work out television schedules that is where the problem starts. I would suggest that perhaps one way of doing it would be to flip the two games, let the seniors play at two o’clock but let the minors play afterwards.”
Dublin senior manager Pat Gilroy’s only change to the side that beat Kildare in the semi-final sees Eamon Fennell come into midfield for the injured Michael Dara Macauley. “Eamon is probably the best fielder of a ball of all the guys we have; he can get up the highest and win possession. It’s something that right throughout the league and early in the championship, on high balls around the middle we haven’t been brilliant. We’re down on 20, 25 per cent at best in matches, on balls coming out around the middle. It’s something we need to improve,” said Gilroy.
Gilroy also backed Eoghan O’Gara to start in the forwards despite the player’s discipline coming under scrutiny after he was red carded following two yellows against Kildare. “We’ve been doing work with him for the last two weeks. A big part of it is down to how strong he is. If he puts his arm on somebody, they fall over. Another fella does it, it’s nothing. He just has to be conscious of it.”
Dublin (SFC v Wexford): S Cluxton; M Fitzsimons, R O'Carroll, P Conlon; J McCarthy, G Brennan, K Nolan; D Bastick, E Fennell; P Flynn, A Brogan, B Cullen; E O'Gara, D Connolly, B Brogan.
