Leinster hurling final - DUBLIN V Kilkenny

[awfulynice]

On your second point saying that if i only wanted "real" hurling fans there that 14k is a good attendance. Now even as you wrote that you must have been having a little chuckle to yourself. There are 90 clubs in dublin with give or take 1000 people involved in each at a gestimate, making it 90k in dublin alone, and possibly another 60 - 70k in KK, so there are plenty of hurling fans that could fill the stadium, the problem is that the GAA seems to want to screw anyone that wants to go see a hurling/football match, especially in croker!!

but you seem to suggest in previous posts that most of teh people at big Dublin games are 'plastic' fan but in fact they are members of clubs who are only interested in going to big games like in every other county.

You talk about giving 1000 tickets to 'football' fans as if you are doing them a favour and showing them a foreign sport to them, these people are GAA people too and if they are interested or want to goto the game they should not be judged.

Yes there is a bandwagon of 'non GAA' people who go to inter-country games from all counties when success is there but we can hardly refuse them...I am not trying to wind you up or anything but some gaa people have little interest in hurling like 99% of Kilkenny has no interest in football but that does not mean if we want to attend a match we are piss heads or plastic fans.

Also the prices of the tickets is rediculous, the gaa are priceing the game as a final but have not realised that people are not very interested in it to pay that money....

I didnt suggest that most dublin fans were plastic, in fact i was saying the opposite, if you reread my post i said that they were a minority but a sizeable minority that ruin the game.

I never suggested that you give 1000 tickets to "football" fans, again reread my post, i said give 1000 tickets to each leinster county to be distributed to the clubs to get a footfall into croke park on sunday. I never mentioned football at all in that paragraph!!!

Im well aware that some GAA people have little interest in hurling, my own county is split 50 / 50 between hurling and football clubs, I myself have very little interest in football and only go to my own countys games to show support, but to be honest with you, i wouldnt turn over the channel to watch another football match from may to september. I can hardly expect other people to do what I wont do myself! That why I never suggested anything of the sort in my post, again you are reading what you want to out of my posts

[awfulynice]

Read the local papers in  Kilkenny because I do regularly. And there have been several controversies regarding Kilkenny football and the laughable treatment of it by the county board. Last year there was a huge row over it.
The Leinster junior championship didn't go well because the hurling clubs wouldn't release players for training.
Hurling in those counties has more of a standing than Kilkenny football but thats not saying much- but at least its better than Kilkenny football.
Kilkenny doesn't facilitate any of thier footballers.
That doesn't bother me- what bothers me is that every other county is pressurised by HQ to promote both codes- but Kilkenny aren't because of the political power they have in the GAA. That does annoy me.

I think that if most of the players are dual players it would be hard to get them released for training as the codes are bound to clash. This issue has come up in many counties, im pretty sure there were a number of Dublin players that played both codes until choosing one or the other. I know there is Stephen Lucey in Limerick & a few others i cant think of right now, that were in the same boat.

At the end of the day it is up to the player, and you cant blame a KK player that has the chance to play senior for his county hurling team choosing that over the football.

In fairness to the clubs also, if a player is on the panel /s you will only have that player at training perhaps once a month. This causes any amount of disruptions for numbers at training, standard and team building. It is understandable that they would like to keep their players as much as possible.

However the KK football team is probably treated worse than the hurling team. This favouritism happens in possibly / probably most counties. Try to convince me that the Dublin hurlers are/ were always treated the same as the footballers?? Or Kerry Hurlers, Tipp Footballers, Waterford footballers, Tyrone Hurlers etc. It is natural to focus the countys resourses on the code you are most succesful at, whether that is right or not i dont know.

[INDIANA]

Thats not what I was saying at all. Every county has a stronger code but pressure is put on to ensure they put some effort into the other code. No pressure is put on Kilkenny by HQ about football- I just want to know why.

Not difficult really then to see the influence as regards referees etc that they have.

[awfulynice]

Thats not what I was saying at all. Every county has a stronger code but pressure is put on to ensure they put some effort into the other code. No pressure is put on Kilkenny by HQ about football- I just want to know why.

Not difficult really then to see the influence as regards referees etc that they have.

In fairness where is there pressure put on the county board to level the playing field?? I dont see this happening anywhere. The GAA has been speaking a lot about helping hurling out, but has been focusing on the likes of Antrim / Laois / Dublin, which have hurling backgrounds anyway. There is no pressure put on the Antrim / Laois / Dublin county boards to treat the hurlers & footballers the same, none that i can see anyway??

[bottlethrower7]

Thats not what I was saying at all. Every county has a stronger code but pressure is put on to ensure they put some effort into the other code. No pressure is put on Kilkenny by HQ about football- I just want to know why.

Its not to do with influence. Its to do with there not being a source of pressure.

If football were neglected in Galway, for example, there'd be uproar from the footballing side of the county. That would be brought to bear by Croke Park after pressure from within, and steps would have to be made to rectify things.

That was my point about there not being a split in Kilkenny. No one's nose is out of joint over the fact that they're poor as hell at football. There is no area of Kilkenny that feels marginalised by the fact that they're not better and no visible steps are being taken to change things to make it so. And this is a situation that is unique to Kilkenny. In any other county you have areas that are hurling and areas that are football (and occasionally areas that are both). In Kilkenny the strong football areas are also hurling areas. Thats why Kilkenny should get credit for the fact that they have a football team at all.

I'm quite close to the Kilkenny football setup. I know the manager well. He was a little dejected this year for sure but it wasn't to do with resources. They got everything they needed from the board. They were well looked after in that regard. The wheels started to come of a little when Herity and Grace joined the hurling panel. And yes, part of the reason they went so poorly in the Leinster junior is because the clubs had started back hurling training. But to be honest, I think their main goal was a good showing in the league. They did reasonably ok last year. They were dire this year. I'm not sure what next year will hold, but no matter what (and this came from Nicky Brennan himself when he was president), its highly unlikely Kilkenny will ever be allowed not have a senior football team.

[bottlethrower7]

Thats not what I was saying at all. Every county has a stronger code but pressure is put on to ensure they put some effort into the other code. No pressure is put on Kilkenny by HQ about football- I just want to know why.

Sometimes thats irrelevant though. Look at Cork. They're generally stronger in hurling than football and pretty much always have been. For some reason though, the footballers always got treated better than the hurlers (remember the first strike?).

I'm not sure what things are like in Galway but to me the football and hurling setup seem like 2 completely separate entities where one doesn't impact the other in the slightest. Football would be traditionally stronger there, but I don't get the impression that the hurlers are left wanting for much.

Dublin have a chequered past in that regard. I think things are fine now. They weren't so great under Naughton or Kelleher. When Mick O'Grady was there he demanded that they be well looked after, and he got his wish. They had everything they needed back then. So its been up and down.

I played on Dublin teams and we were told by the board that the amount of gear we were going to get depended on how far the football went went. Needless to say we were all hoping they'd be knocked out as soon as possible.

[INDIANA]

If you look at Kerry - hurling shouldn't exist at all- but it does. And they are reasonably good- relatively speaking obviously. I'm just saying giving Kilkenny a carte blanche on the hurling does contribute to their utter hurling domination to some extent. I know Paul Galvin missed the odd county  football session because he had to play a club championship hurling game. That wouldn't happen in kilkenny.

[heffo]

12,500 sold as of this evening - another 10k for corporate and they're expecting another 5k or so to buy tickets between now and then..

[bottlethrower7]

If you look at Kerry - hurling shouldn't exist at all- but it does. And they are reasonably good- relatively speaking obviously. I'm just saying giving Kilkenny a carte blanche on the hurling does contribute to their utter hurling domination to some extent. I know Paul Galvin missed the odd county  football session because he had to play a club championship hurling game. That wouldn't happen in kilkenny.

still not apples and apples though. Kerry has plenty of hurling country on the outskirts of Tralee (Abbeydorney, etc). You don't really get Kilmoyley or Lixnaw lads playing with the footballers.

Anyway, we digress. The original claim was that 99% of people in Kilkenny have no interest in football. By my reckoning thats far from the truth.

[awfulynice]

If you look at Kerry - hurling shouldn't exist at all- but it does. And they are reasonably good- relatively speaking obviously. I'm just saying giving Kilkenny a carte blanche on the hurling does contribute to their utter hurling domination to some extent. I know Paul Galvin missed the odd county  football session because he had to play a club championship hurling game. That wouldn't happen in kilkenny.

hurling shouldnt exist at all in Kerry?? Ummm id say there are quite a few that would disagree with you on that one, they have one all ireland and have some quite competitive clubs and schools, an example is Causeway in the schools competition they are generally one of the better teams in munster.

Also their team is not good, I would rank them about 14 or 15th in terms of hurling at the moment. They are not treated particularly well as i have seen when they have traveled to play offaly on a few occasions in the past few years.

Paul Galvin missed a few training sessions...now are you really trying to tell me that if we had the likes of Henry Shefflin missing what 4 or 5 training sessions in the year that it would make the difference between KK winning or losing an AI???

Im afraid my friend you and some others on this  forum are going to have to face up to the truth

There is no conspiracy, no favouritism either inside or outside of KK, no backhanders, no carte blanche.

KK are the best hurling team in this country and have been for probably the last 5 - 10 years. They are because they have got a gifted crop of players together, not unlike Clare or Offaly in the nineties, sure there underage structures played a part and the fact that hurling is more a religion than a sport was also a factor. But Im afraid you cant make people like football / hurling. The simple fact is that the majority of people love hurling and prefer it over football.

The argument you are making now could be made against Dublin 5 years ago, or any other number of counties for that matter

[bottlethrower7]

12,500 sold as of this evening - another 10k for corporate and they're expecting another 5k or so to buy tickets between now and then..

I'm guessing the upper tiers will be closed. They've done that for the past few Leinster hurling finals, leaving the capacity at 40K or so.

Circa 30k at the game could still feel very empty. Its a shame this wasn't moved to a ground that might lend itself to a better atmosphere (Portlaoise, Thurles).

[bottlethrower7]

hurling shouldnt exist at all in Kerry??

I think its a lot easier for hurling to exist in Kerry than for football to do likewise in Kerry. As said before, they contest a championship that they have a chance of actually winning. They have a chance of a Croke Park appearance on all-Ireland semi-final day (assuming the GAA are reverting those fixtures back to the way they were). They dropped out of the Munster hurling championship.

So there are a few parallels between the Kerry hurlers and Kilkenny footballers. But there are differences too. And those differences tend to favour Kerry's chances of building a half decent hurling team.

[heffo]

12,500 sold as of this evening - another 10k for corporate and they're expecting another 5k or so to buy tickets between now and then..

I'm guessing the upper tiers will be closed. They've done that for the past few Leinster hurling finals, leaving the capacity at 40K or so.

Circa 30k at the game could still feel very empty. Its a shame this wasn't moved to a ground that might lend itself to a better atmosphere (Portlaoise, Thurles).

It couldn't be moved to a provincial ground due to commercial commitments with sponsors and people who'd bought 10 year premium tickets etc..

[bottlethrower7]

It couldn't be moved to a provincial ground due to commercial commitments with sponsors and people who'd bought 10 year premium tickets etc..

yep, the GAA have left themselves slaves to the corporate sector. They have to guarantee X amount of games per year.

By the way, is the ticket office at the back of the Cusack still open these times? Or where do they do the public sale from nowadays?

[Michael Schmeichal]

yep, the GAA have left themselves slaves to the corporate sector. They have to guarantee X amount of games per year.

By the way, is the ticket office at the back of the Cusack still open these times? Or where do they do the public sale from nowadays?

New GAA ticket office is on Dorset st, 2 doors up from The Red Parrot pub.