Galway and Kerry secure hotels for All-Ireland football final

BOOKED IN: A general view of Croke Park. Picture: ©INPHO/Laszlo Geczo

Galway and Kerry have secured hotels in Dublin for Sunday week’s All-Ireland senior football final.

Both counties are unlikely to organise post-match banquets open to the public. Providing there isn’t a draw, Galway have scheduled a homecoming event in The Galmont Hotel the following night.

Kerry are understood to have booked a hotel in Dublin’s north inner city and will travel to the capital on the day before the game.

Due to accommodation costs and availability in Dublin, Kerry had to pay to secure a hotel for their quarter-final prior to qualifying for it by winning their Munster final against Limerick.

Galway had arranged to stay in the Clayton Burlington Hotel this weekend before their hurlers’ semi-final defeat and Limerick have since taken the booking. Kilkenny will travel to and from Croke Park this Sunday.

As there are no curtain-raisers to the finals, the GAA are expected to put plans in place to encourage supporters to arrive early and ensure a steady crowd flow into Croke Park. The matches should be the first full capacity sell-outs games at GAA HQ since 2019 but there have been difficulties expressed at local level with the purchase and distribution of tickets.

Meanwhile, David Gough is in line to take charge of his second All-Ireland SFC final. The Meath man, whose first decider was the 2019 meeting of Dublin and Kerry, is shortlisted for the game along with Tyrone’s Seán Hurson.

Gough was also the man in the middle for last month’s Kerry-Mayo quarter-final as well as the Leinster SFC quarter-final between Kildare and Louth, the Derry-Monaghan Ulster semi-final and the Cavan-Down qualifier.

Hurson’s SFC games this year were the Dublin-Cork quarter-final, the Ulster SFC final between Derry and Donegal, the Kildare-Westmeath Leinster semi-final and the New York-Sligo Connacht preliminary round game.

Elsewhere, Tony McEntee is to remain on as Sligo manager for a third season. The two-time All-Ireland winning senior club manager was offered a three-year term in November 2020 and will continue alongside Joe Keane.

Former Sligo captain Noel McGuire and ex-goalkeeper Paul Durcan will be McEntee’s selectors and the county’s athletic performance coach Seán Boyle heads up the strength and conditioning. McEntee could also receive an additional year based on a review at the end of the 2023 season.

Paul Henry moves from winning the Connacht MFC title this year to taking charge of the U20s next year and in 2024. He succeeds Dessie Sloyan who also brought Sligo to a provincial title this season. Former star Sloyan completed his final of a third-year term.