THE Munster hurling final replay on Sunday in Pairc Ui Chaoimh now seems certain to have a 2.30 start. Both Limerick and Tipperary last night gave their blessing to bringing forward the start by three-quarters of an hour, from the original time of 3.15.
Earlier the Leinster Council confirmed that they were willing to put back the start of the Leinster hurling final between Offaly and Wexford from 3.45 to 4.0 to open up the way for a back-to-back live broadcast of both finals.
It is understood that RTE have no logistical problems with such an agreement.
If the new starting times are adopted, the Munster final will end five minutes before the start of the Leinster decider, unless the Munster game ends in a draw and extra time is played.
The high quality and exciting nature of the drawn match between Limerick and Tipperary last Sunday increased interest in that match countrywide, but the GAA and RTE were determined to honour their commitment to show the Leinster final between Offaly and Wexford live.
The problem was that there would have been an overlap between the two matches. The two could not have been accommodated unless the two provincial councils were prepared to hammer out a compromise.
Yesterday Michael Reynolds, speaking from the Leinster Council offices in Portlaoise, said Leinster were prepared to compromise in regard to starting times. "Leinster will not be found wanting" in any bid to accommodate both matches live, he said.
One matter which was causing considerable concern to the organisers of Sunday's Munster final replay was that the capacity of Pairc Ui Chaoimh has been set at 40,000. Many among the crowd of 43,535 in Limerick believed that there would be less of a problem getting tickets for the replay, but that is not now the case.
As things stood until last night, RTE had made arrangements to televise the first half of the Munster clash, starting at 3.15, then switching to the Leinster match, starting at 3.45, and extending their coverage to show the rest of the Munster match afterwards.
A spokeswoman for RTE said last night that there had been no alteration in that arrangement for the moment at least,, hut it is believed that since RTE had already made arrangements for outside broadcast units to be present at both matches, a back-to-back transmission of the matches would not present a logistical or technical problem.
The Limerick county board are asking Aer Lingus to schedule special flights from Shannon and Dublin to Cork for Sunday's match.
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