Ciarán Kilkenny backs up Gavin’s claim about Croke Park surface

Ciarán Kilkenny has backed up manager Jim Gavin’s claims that an area of the Croke Park pitch close to the Hill 16 end goal was slippy.

Following Sunday’s Leinster final, Gavin highlighted an issue with the part of the surface, which was re-sodded following Coldplay’s gig at the stadium the weekend previous.

Kilkenny remarked: “I noticed it straight away — that whole section of the field was nearly like an all-weather kind of a surface. I could definitely see that there was a different kind of a bounce in that area — and that’s what I noticed straight away, that that particular section was completely different to the rest of the field.”