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16th Mar 2018

Waterford hurling supporters unhappy with venue for Munster Championship clash

Niall McIntyre

Hard to argue with them.

Waterford will have to travel all the way across Munster to Limerick for their Munster championship meeting with Tipperary.

The Déise were supposed to be hosting the Premier County in Waterford on June 3, but “due to the unavailability of Walsh Park,” the game will now take place in Limerick.

A Munster championship game hasn’t taken place at the grounds since 2003. In recent years that hasn’t proved much of a problem for the county, seeing as the majority of provincial clashes were held in neutral venues or in Semple Stadium.

That changes this year, however, on the back of the introduction of the round robin structure which is played on a home and away basis. There are much more games in this year’s Munster championship, and as a result, counties will be playing in their home venues.

National League games have been taking place at the venue, but its capacity of 8,000 wouldn’t be sufficient for a big Munster championship game.

This all means that the Waterford hurling faithful will have to cover plenty of ground to support their team. They will have to travel to Limerick twice, to Cusack Park, Ennis and to Semple Stadium. This will result in over 600 km of travelling for their Munster campaign.

Needless to say, they weren’t best pleased with the arrangements. Many took aim at the Waterford county board themselves, for supposedly not showing enough effort or commitment to upgrading the grounds.

It doesn’t get much better for the county, with both hurling and football semi-finals clashing should they progress that far in their respective Munster championship campaigns.

 

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Waterford GAA