“We’re totally disgusted. This decision tells you what they really think of Dublin hurling.”
That’s what Dublin GAA Chairman Sean Shanley thought when the Dublin hurlers were forced to play Tipperary in a qualifier game in Semple Stadium last year.
Qualifiers are supposed to take place in a neutral venue, but seeing as Semple Stadium is hurling’s headquarter grounds, and given that the second round of the qualifiers had taken place in Thurles for the two years previous, the GAA decided against changing tack just because Tipperary would have home advantage.
And the head bottle washer of Dublin GAA was fuming about the injustice of it all.
“The Dublin hurlers have played in Thurles on many occasions and like playing there, but not when it is supposed to be a neutral venue and our opposition are Tipperary,” he said to the Irish Examiner this time last year.
Everything’s unfair until you’re the one getting away with it. Then it’s all Hunky Dory but with a whole host of Dublin folk now attempting to swat away concerns that their footballers playing their ‘neutral’ Super 8 games in their own back yard gives them an advantage, this doesn’t really help that argument.
Classic https://t.co/FLlMX5iHp4
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) July 4, 2018
Because the situation the Dublin hurlers found themselves in last year is a crystal clear carbon copy of the one Dublin’s Super 8 opponents Donegal and co. find themselves in now.
Except this time around, Dublin are the ones sitting pretty and with every second Dublin supporter apparently arguing that home advantage isn’t actually that much of an advantage, they might want to take that one up with their county board’s head man.
The argument that Croker isn’t Dublin’s home grounds doesn’t hold up when you consider they’ve played every single League game and the majority of their championship games in GAA HQ since 2010.
https://twitter.com/Woolberto/status/1014864253956829185
The GAA came announced earlier on Thursday afternoon that their would be no change on the issue this year, and that Dublin will play two of their Super 8 games in Croker.
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