Leinster chiefs don’t expect full house
Meath and Laois will kick off the day’s events at 2pm before Pat Gilroy’s Dubs face Wexford. Both are quarter-finals and the winners from each will pair off in one of the Leinster semi-finals at the end of the month.
Though the Dublin footballers are the GAA’s biggest draw, they have failed to attract a capacity audience at HQ for the three championship openers they have played on Jones’ Road since beginning their summer at Longford’s Pearse Park in 2006. A whopping 78,002 people took in their draw with Meath in 2007, only 56,496 saw them hammer Louth 12 months later while 75,250 attended witnessed their defeat of Meath last year on a day when the Dublin hurlers and Antrim opened the bill. “No, we don’t expect a full house,” said Leinster Council chairman Seamus Howlin, “but we do expect a very big crowd all the same.”
