Kieran Shannon: Many good reasons why Páirc will be standing room only Saturday night

Cork’s hurlers are embracing expectation, turning league ambition into sell-out crowds and reviving the competition’s box-office appeal

The Cork hurlers of recent years have become the biggest box-office draw the GAA has had since Dublin started winning football All-Irelands again. Pic: Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile

The national hurling league is now in its centenary year. Yet in all its long history, this Saturday could mark a first for it: a round-robin game thatattracts 35,000 or possibly beyond.

Football has on a couple of occasions commanded such audiences before. In 2007 and again in 2009 the league began with Tyrone and Dublin packing Croke Park out as the masses wanted to check out the venue’s new floodlights and then some 125th-GAA anniversary fireworks as much as any shootouts between Stephen O’Neill and the Brogans.