LEINSTER CHAMPIONSHIPS:LEINSTER COUNCIL'S staging of low-key championship matches at Croke Park might have to be reconsidered, according to provincial chair Séamus Howlin. He was commenting on Sunday's attendance figures of 21,707 for the Kildare-Wicklow and Carlow-Meath double bill.
"It's something we probably have to look at," he said. "It's no secret that we were expecting between 25,000 and 30,000. Yesterday was disappointing for us but if we're going to get big attendances we're going to have to have better games and keep the standards up. But I wouldn't get too excited about it just yet because the championship hasn't really got going.
"It was probably a bad weekend all round for the GAA," said Howlin. "There wasn't much of a spectacle, although I enjoyed Cavan-Antrim when I saw it on television and thought it was a mighty achievement for Wicklow to win in Croke Park after all those years."
In recent years the province has established the practice of fixing double bills for the headquarters venue but with the growing costs of opening up such a large stadium this is becoming costly.
Nonetheless from a financial point of view Leinster is content to use Croke Park for promotional purposes.
"There's not really a financial issue," according to Leinster chief executive Michael Delaney, "because we are allowed balance our crowds over the season."
The Leinster quarter-finals for the beginning of June have been finalised in the aftermath of the weekend's matches. Both Laois-Wicklow and Meath-Wexford will be played at Dr Cullen Park in Carlow but on different dates. Wicklow's match with Laois will be televised live on the Saturday night, May 31st, and the other fixture on the following afternoon.
The Leinster Council also cleared up any ambiguity about the All-Ireland hurling qualifiers ahead of next weekend's provincial hurling first round.
The confusion has arisen over Westmeath's presence on invitation in the provincial championship but not in the MacCarthy Cup.
With only one team (the loser of the Laois-Offaly fixture) due to qualify from the weekend's matches for round two of the All-Ireland qualifiers (round one will be Antrim-Galway) the question arose as to what might happen if Westmeath repeated their win over Dublin from two years ago and created a second loser from the Leinster first round.
The answer is that any team that loses to Westmeath will take their place in the subsequent qualifier round.
In other words should Dublin lose on Sunday they will go into round three of the qualifiers and should Westmeath defeat Wexford in the Leinster semi-finals, Wexford would take their place in round four - the round in which defeated Munster and Leinster finalists enter.
Were Westmeath to beat, for the sake of argument, Kilkenny in the Leinster final they would bow out at that stage and Kilkenny would proceed to the All-Ireland semi-final as if they were provincial champions. Hypothetically.
