O’Grady: Cats have Croker edge for final
O’Grady delivered the first psychological blow of the build-up yesterday.
He declared: “The GAA say they need a gate of over 30,000 at Croke Park to break even, but they’re playing Leinster Championship games there all the time with 25,000 people. It affords the Leinster teams a bit of experience of playing in Croke Park. I have never played there, but the lads say it is a different surface from Thurles, Limerick or Cork. If it’s damp it’s tough to play on, so it gives Leinster counties that bit of familiarity that Munster teams don’t have. That’s an advantage for them.”
O’Grady revealed that injured attacker Jonathan O’Callaghan will have an operation tomorrow for the cracked cheekbone he suffered in a trial game on Sunday.
“There’s a bit of movement there so they have to put that back properly. He has to have a plate inserted, so he is definitely out of the reckoning for the final.”
The Cork selectors will not make a final decision on John Gardiner’s hand injury until next week.
“We won’t know whether it’s 100% ready until training,” O’Grady said.
He admitted the facile manner of Cork’s semi-final victory over Wexford had surprised him.
“I was on record as saying that it would go down to the last few minutes. I was amazed they fell away, and were so poor on the day. There was no competitive aspect to that gameafter 15 minutes.”
Meanwhile, the hurling decider will be refereed by Dublin’s Aodhán Mac Suibhne, who also handled the quarter-final between Cork and Antrim and last month’s semi-final meeting of Waterford and Kilkenny.
A member of the St Jude’s club in Dublin, this will be his second senior final, having refereed the 2002 decider between Kilkenny and Clare.
In 1994 he was in charge of the All-Ireland minor hurling final and has also refereed U-21 and National League finals.
The minor final between Galway and Kilkenny will be refereed by John Sexton of Limerick. From the Bruree club, he has been involved in refereeing for more than 13 years and refereed All Ireland minor hurling semi-finals in both 2001 and 2002.
Cork GAA officials announced last night that they have received a total of 10,981 tickets for the hurling final - 7,381 stand and 3,600 terrace tickets.
Spokesman John Motherway said that no more individual applications would be dealt with, as all tickets would now be processed through the divisions and clubs. The squeeze on tickets is underlined by the fact that Cork received an allocation of 24,000 seated tickets for the semi-final against Wexford.
GAA President Sean Kelly announced yesterday that Olympic gold medallist Cian O’Connor will be a special guest of the Association at the Guinness hurling final.
“Cian brought huge honour to Ireland and its equestrian tradition and it was both opportune and appropriate that he should be honoured in the biggest sporting arena in the country,” Mr Kelly said.
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