Real action still begins when tour of provinces ends

Back in the mid-Noughties the Leinster Council of the GAA found itself drawn to Croke Park like a moth to an everlasting light bulb.

For five years through the core of that decade, the men and women based in their Portlaoise offices seemed to take the view that if there was a provincial football championship game to be played in their neck of the woods then, by heck, it would be played in HQ regardless of the identity of the counties involved, the stage of the competition or likely attendance figures.

Between 2003 and 2007, 44 of Leinster’s 68 football fixtures were held in Dublin 2, 64% of the total, with the height of the madness coming in 2005 when nine out of their 10 games that year were ring-fenced for a stadium that was invariably reduced to the status of echo chamber.