THE DECISION ON whether to take the Dublin footballers out of Croke Park for a second successive year will be decided on 16 November with seating capacity in venues set to be a key factor in making the decision.
Dublin have been drawn to play the winners of Wexford or Carlow at the Leinster quarter-final stage. The prospect of Wexford or Carlow enjoying home advantage, or a stadium like Nowlan Park being used, has not been ruled out.
Last June, Dublin face Laois at the Kilkenny venue as they played a senior football championship match away from Croke Park fro the first time since 2006.
The meeting of the CCC in Leinster on 16 November will decide the province’s championship fixtures programme for 2017.
“It hasn’t been fully decided and it won’t be until that night,” revealed Leinster Council chairman John Horan.
“If you look at the returns from the game in Nowlan Park, 11,000 people were in seats that night.
“That showed that there was a demand, but there was spare places on the terrace. So seating is in big demand and the season tickets that Dublin have is a big thing.
“Dublin have over 3,000 season tickets. Then if you think, by the time you look after the players and sponsors and whoever, how many will you have left to actually seat people?
“So the reason for Nowlan Park was seats. There was no other reason.
“It was a successful occasion (last year). I think there was a few things in it we could have tweaked.
“It clashed with Cat Laughs (comedy festival) and it was a Bank Holiday weekend.
“But all in all, anyone who was there said they enjoyed the atmosphere of the occasion.
“I think a lot of people felt it was fair to get them out and Dublin were the happiest of all to go down there.
“I think they viewed it as a great chance to bond, just to get their championship season on the road. Nobody in Dublin had any issue with it at any stage.”
Horan acknowledged the recent fall in gate receipts but is hopeful the arrival of high-profile managers like Davy Fitzgerald and Andy McEntee in the province will increase interest.
“Look, let’s be honest, Dublin have kind of stretched ahead of everybody and the competitive nature of the game Dublin are playing in, is not a big attraction.
“If you go back, in my three years as Leinster Chairman, we had 62,000 against Meath, the following year it was Westmeath, 48,000.
“Every body from Westmeath was there, but just they didn’t have the crowd potential to come. And then last year it dropped again.
“We got caught with the Ireland soccer match when we had our double header in Croke Park. I think we managed it well, got over 40,000.
“We changed the timing of the match and I think that went well. You have to kind of juggle circumstance.
“Hopefully Wexford get going with Davy, it causes excitement, the McEntees get Meath back on the road, those two things happen and I think it will spruce up the Leinster championship in football and hurling.”
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Casey should be playing the ryder cup with the form he is in. Pity….
Who cares, where are the pictures of him celebrating with Paula ?? Could do with a drool !
Casey chose not to play on the European tour. He just needed to play 5 times. Pity, he’s better than Westwood right now for sure..
True but it shows a lack of interest/commitment, shame alright, he had no problem coming back to Europe to play a couple of years ago when his career went into free fall, it was the Irish Open where he kickstarted his career again, decided Nov 15 he wasn’t going to bother playing the small number of tournaments required.
The anti Lee Westwood(all around social media) thing baffles me. He was in decent form when picked and if Clarke had left him out there would have been uproar and knives out to blame his exclusion on a defeat if it happened.
Absolutely. More so than bloody Westwood.
Why ? Last result aside, he has been in better form than several of the rookies (2 of them are not at the races at all at the moment) and his Ryder Cup record speaks for itself.