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.”

GAA director general Páraic Duffy was also at the game and agreed it was a problem caused by the large crowd who arrived at the stadium without having purchased tickets. Speaking at an event yesterday to promote advance championship ticket purchases via tickets.ie, Supervalu and Centra stores, he said: “A lot of people turned up at the one time without tickets around 2pm. By 2.30pm I don’t think there were any queues at all. You just don’t clear that number in the space of five or 10 minutes.”

Ryan confirmed an open gate at the Town End had allowed terrace patrons who had paid €15 admission to avoid the rain and sit in the Ó Riain Stand where entry was €20.

Meanwhile, groin injury victim Declan Hannon admits he faces a race against time to be fit for Limerick’s Munster SHC quarter-final against Tipperary on May 27. “We are building towards the Tipp game, but it’s looking fairly unlikely I’ll be playing. It’s just very slow.”

The Adare man says as much as Tipp will be favourites in Thurles next month, their show against Cork on Sunday didn’t strike any fear into him. “I think people are already underestimating us because we didn’t get out of the division (1B).

“We’ll be underdogs but watching Tipp yesterday they wouldn’t put too many butterflies in your stomach.”