Nugent: Munster Council to blame for Thurles crowd trouble

Tipperary chairman Sean Nugent has slammed the Munster Council’s explanation for the crowd chaos that marred the start of last week’s provincial minor hurling final replay in Semple Stadium

Hundreds of fans streamed across the pitch from the New stand side to the Old Stand before the Limerick-Waterford rematch got underway nine days ago.

The provincial body later issued a statement admitting “inadequate stewarding” was to blame for the problem. However, Nugent insists the Munster Council only have themselves to blame. He revealed a number of voluntary local stewards, with passes, were refused entry to Semple Stadium by Munster Council representatives when they showed up for duty at the Cork-Tipperary IHC final the previous Friday. Because of the incident many of those volunteers made themselves unavailable for the minor tie. This led to a chronic lack of bodies available to deal with what was described by the Munster Council as “patron behaviour.”