Ger Brennan has strongly criticised fixture makers for scheduling a provincial club league game as a curtain raiser to last Sunday’s Leinster SFC semi-final between Louth and Kildare at O’Connor Park in Tullamore.
The Leinster League final between Milltown and Rosemount took place at 11.45am, but with only four dressingrooms at the venue, Brennan says the space available to both Louth and Kildare when they arrived ahead of their 2pm contest was inadequate.
“It was terrible. I was talking to Brian Flanagan beforehand and we were there looking at each other because you have the guts of 15 or 16 in a backroom team and then you have 30 lads togging out, your 26 and your four reserves,” says Brennan.
“And you have another seven or eight fellas who didn’t make the squad or are injured. We were like sardines in one changing room. Dare I say, it was a bit of a disgrace and badly organised from the Leinster Council.
Inside Gaelic Games: The weekly GAA newsletter from The Irish Times
Dean Rock: Defeat to Meath could be just the spur Dublin need to recalibrate All-Ireland bid
Louth manager Ger Brennan enraged by ‘terrible’ organising for Leinster semi-final
Galway must reconcile painful final defeats by lifting Sam Maguire, says Cillian McDaid
“We were all squashed into one dressingroom. How that was organised before a semi-final of the Leinster Championship was just incredible.”
Brennan says he was only made aware of the double-header by chance in the days beforehand after a friend from one of the clubs involved sent him a text.
[ All-Ireland football draws: All you need to knowOpens in new window ]
“He said, ‘I’ll be down supporting Rosemount before your match’ and he sent me on the advertisement for it. I rang the county board and asked them were they aware of it and they said no. It was just horses**t.
“There are four dressingrooms but they’re not big enough, you couldn’t swing a cat in there. It was the same for Kildare as well.”
The decision of the Leinster Council to fix both semi-finals outside of Croke Park this year was generally welcomed and the drama of last weekend’s games appeared to vindicate the move.
Brennan was speaking at a pre-Leinster final media event at the Battle of the Boyne visitor centre on Thursday afternoon as Louth prepare for a provincial showdown against Meath.
Louth lost the last two Leinster deciders to Dublin. Brennan, a former Dublin footballer, says the Dubs have benefited from their Croke Park familiarity over the years.
“Dublin playing in Croke Park the whole time is an advantage,” he says.
“For lads not used to playing there, to go into Croke Park for a provincial final or a semi-final against Dublin, you’re absolutely disadvantaged.
“I don’t know about [Meath manager] Robbie [Brennan], you’d have to ask him, but I know the Louth and Kildare lads would rather have played [the semi-final] in Croke Park so I actually don’t think it was a good move to take the semi-finals out of Croke Park on this occasion. But then would Meath have finished the game as strongly? I don’t know.”
Leinster Council vice-chairman Martin Byrne believes Sunday week’s decider will be one of the most significant in years.
“Any provincial final is special but when you have two neighbouring counties with history between them playing it makes it more special and adds to the occasion,” he said.
“I think the council showed a good bit of leadership this year. We tried a few things, we brought the semi-finals out of Croke Park for the first time in a long time. Kildare played their first game in a Leinster championship at home this year, Dublin went to Wicklow. All those things help create the occasions for those special days, which ends up with where we are on Sunday week.
“There’s probably a generation of people who don’t know anything (other than Dublin winning). I was travelling home from Portlaoise on Sunday with three 17-year-olds in the car and the only thing they ever knew was Dublin winning Leinster. At least in two weeks they’ll see a different name on the trophy.”
