Massive walk-up crowd caused Thurles delay

Approximately 6,000 tickets were sold in one hour on Sunday for the Allianz Hurling League Division 1A semi-finals.

Tipperary PRO Ger Ryan revealed a massive walk-up crowd had seen the Semple Stadium gate-checkers bombarded between 1.30 and 2.30pm. As a result, the opening game between Kilkenny and Clare was put back 15 minutes.

“The primary issue is people didn’t buy their tickets in advance,” said Ryan. “Despite it being advertised in newspapers, radio and online by both Croke Park and the Tipperary Co Board, only a fraction of people purchased tickets in advance. We also encountered problems with printing tickets and people then expected it to be done all at once. Efficiency is something we will have to look at. We’re not saying we can’t improve the process but this was the situation we had to face.”