Dublin to continue on road less travelled in Leinster

Dublin’s footballers look likely to remain on the road in the years to come, according to Leinster GAA chairman John Horan. Speaking at Thursday’s launch of the provincial schools championship, now sponsored by Top Oil, he said that this week’s decision to fix the champions’ opening defence against Wexford or Carlow in either Wexford Park or O’Moore Park Portlaoise was part of a process started this year when Dublin played Laois in Kilkenny’s Nowlan Park.

He was also responding to criticism that last season Leinster Council had refused to play the match in O’Moore Park, even though Laois had home advantage in the draw.

“Well, last year we did it on the basis that we were going to the biggest venue [outside Croke Park] to test it out, and we were taking a cautious step. It hadn’t been done in 10 years and the Dublin that’s there now is a different Dublin that was there 10 years ago. They have four All-Ireland’s under their belt in that sense, so we felt that we had to take that cautious step last year and test the market.

Reviewed

“Now we feel we can take another step forward and spread the actual base that Dublin would use. You’d be talking about Wexford, Portlaoise and Tullamore as possible venues, but again it’ll be reviewed every year and just see how it goes.”

Leinster had always explained their reluctance to take Dublin out of Croke Park as being based on the larger revenues available from using the stadium, but according to Horan he had personally advocated a change of policy. And last season’s provincial championship didn’t suffer unduly by moving the champions to Kilkenny.

“We actually analysed the finances from this year and we were down a little. But what brought us down was the fact that the Saturday night double-header, the attendance at that was so small.

“That’s really where the hit was. There was only 13,000 here. We were anticipating that if we had played those matches on a Sunday afternoon, that we might have gotten 25,000 or 30,000 at it. We had to move to a Saturday afternoon because of Bruce Springsteen. But look, that was just logic. We had no choice but to let that concert go ahead.”

Home-and-away basis

Commenting on the ongoing dispute between Galway and the Leinster hurling counties over the latter’s unwillingness to play championship fixtures on a home-and-away basis, Horan said that the counties in the province remained opposed both to travelling and allowing the Connacht county to compete fully at under-age level.

The Liam Mellows club in Galway has tabled a motion calling on the county to leave the Leinster championship, which they joined in 2009, and compete in Munster.

“This is really a national issue at this stage,” said Horan. “In my time as chairman, I went and met the Galway officers and brought them in to meet the management committee, brought them to meet the full council and there is no coming together of minds between the representatives of the Leinster counties and Galway. So in that context, it’s not going to be solved at that level.

“So I think it has to be brought to a national level. Why trash it against Munster and Leinster? I think it has to be addressed by the coming-together of Munster and Leinster nationally.

“Because as it is, the counties in Leinster, they’re just not going to budge. I have asked the Leinster counties to consider going to Galway, to play home amd away. In all Leinster counties, there can be a home-and-away arrangement. If you can enter into a home-and-away arrangement, there is no issue.

“But nobody wants to enter a home-and-away arrangement with Galway. So that’s why the games go to Tullamore.”

Controversy

Horan recently announced that he would be running for the GAA presidency next spring, hoping to be the first Dublin representative to hold the office since Dr JJ Stewart nearly 60 years ago. Among the topics that he has raised is a fairer distribution of resources, and he addressed the controversy over Dublin’s allocation of development funds.

“If you worked it out per head of population, there’s not a massive difference between what Dublin get and what other counties get. The critical thing that’s missed in terms of Dublin is that there’s a huge input from the clubs into the coaching schemes in Dublin. They cover 50 per cent of the costs.

“The programme we’re putting in East Leinster [focusing on Louth, Meath, Kildare and Wicklow] will put that on the table for the counties and their bigger clubs: do they want to part-fund a position and, if they want to, they get a full coach like in Dublin. If they’re not in a position to half-fund it, well then they can get a smaller contribution.

“I think you will see going forward Dublin’s funding is being questioned. I saw Tom Ryan [GAA finance director] saying recently that we still have to find a way of funding this €500,000 for the East Leinster project and some of that funding may come from Dublin.”