In today’s Hospital Pass, we’re surprised by the phenomenon of tickets for Sunday’s All-Ireland hurling final going unsold, and consider the ongoing spat between Pat Spillane and Donegal.
By Shane Breslin and Conor Heneghan
We’ve been spoilt with top-class All-Ireland hurling finals over the last couple of years. When Kilkenny came from behind to edge out Tipp in a classic encounter two years ago, completing the four-in-a-row in the process, we felt that it might be a long time before we witnessed something similar.
If anything, when the same two sides met again 12 months later, it was even better, a seething, raging, rip-roaring game ending with Henry Shefflin sitting in the dugout holding his buckled knee and Lar Corbett taking the plaudits after a rare All-Ireland final hat-trick.
They’re the best two sides in the country, perhaps the best two sides in a generation, and they meet again on Sunday with everyone hoping that the game lives up to its billing as perhaps the decisive encounter to define an era.
Well, maybe not everyone.
Because it turns out that a fair few Cats supporters have decided to stay away in a valiant but spectacularly cut-off-nose-to-spite-face manner.
Clubs in Kilkenny have been returning unsold tickets in their hundreds because of the decision of the GAA to raise the price of single stand tickets to €80, a hike of a tenner or, for the analysts among you, 14 per cent.
Ned Power of the Black and Whites club, which returned 40 tickets, told the Irish Independent, “I know a lot of other clubs returned tickets too. I’m heavily involved in the GAA and I know there is nothing better than the atmosphere in Croke Park, but you cut your cloth to your measure and families can’t afford it like they used to three or four years ago.”
Spillane’s spillage?
Try as we might, we don’t think we’ve gone a day this week in Hospital Pass without mentioning the somewhat divisive Dublin v Donegal All-Ireland semi-final last weekend. The problem is, some people just won’t let it go and in our defence, paper never refuses ink, or in this case, white space on a Microsoft Word document never refuses beautiful Calibri font.
Anyway, the latest to spout forth with his two cents on the matter is Tom Conaghan, or the Donegal Town Lord Mayor to you and me. It seems poor Tom, like many of his fellow Donegallians, took issue with Pat Spillane’s scathing analysis of the Donegal performance on Sunday. Crimes against Gaelic Football, anyone?
“The county board should come out and back Jim McGuinness in the strongest way possible and that is why I would urge them to let RTE know of the county’s feeling on the criticism,” the former Donegal under-21 manager and Boris Johnson of the north-west told the Donegal Democrat.
“Do we want Pat Spillane, Colm O’Rourke and Joe Brolly dictating to us how we play our football? I think not. I’m disgusted and very annoyed with the comments, in particular those of Pat Spillane.
“As far as I’m concerned and everybody I have spoken to since the game, they were way over the top, uncalled for and insulting to Donegal and Donegal footballers and are simply not acceptable and I feel that RTE should be made aware of our feelings on the matter.”
But didn’t Pat himself say the other day that he met a load of Donegal people after the game who agreed with his savaging of McGuinness’ charges?
So who’s right? More pertinently, does anyone even care anymore? Didn’t think so.
