Mayo unable to secure hotel rooms for Dublin trip 

Horan revealed they travelled from Mayo on the day of the game.

Mayo manager James Horan. Photo by Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile

Mayo became the latest senior inter-county team unable to book an overnight stay in a Dublin hotel.

Manager James Horan revealed the shortage of accommodation in the capital combined with the five-day turnaround from learning the qualifier against Kildare would be played in Croke Park and the 6pm throw-in meant the squad travelled from Mayo on the day of the game.

The previous Saturday, Kerry’s hurlers had to travel up and down to Dublin for their Joe McDonagh Cup final due to a lack of hotel availability, while the county executive had to pre-purchase their senior footballers’ accommodation before winning their Munster final win over Limerick to secure it for their quarter-final on June 25 or 26.

"Six o'clock is a hard time for a game,” said Horan. “Do you come up the night before for the game and then you can't get hotels on the Friday night? You don't know until the Monday. It's hard to book a hotel so we couldn't come up the Friday night so we came up today (Saturday).

“Is that a lot of travelling on the day of the game? Even if you did come up the day before the game, six o'clock is a long time to be hanging around in a hotel. You're always try to balance those things and get them right.” 

A commitment to Croke Park premium ticket holders is understood to have been a primary reason for staging Saturday’s qualifier double-header in GAA HQ.

Horan also questioned the GAA’s insistence on championship squads being registered by Thursday morning having lost two players to injury and sickness after that cut-off point.

“We’d a player that got sick this morning and couldn’t come, and we had a player that got injured on Thursday. The GAA rule is one of the craziest rules that ever existed. We had a game last weekend against Monaghan, and we trained Tuesday and Thursday. I’ve to submit a 26 on Thursday morning by 9am. If anyone gets injured, or hurt, or anything after that, you can’t add anyone to the panel.

“I’m not sure if people know or understand that, it’s one of the stupidest rules that I’ve heard of. So we arrived with 24 players today, and in game like that, that cuts your options. So why can’t it be a day before, or whenever?

“To have to do it a couple of days before a game doesn’t make any sense, and then people give out about the team not starting that was on the programme. I’ve to submit a team but we might have a fitness test for four players.”