Leinster Council defends fixtures decisions for 2016 Championship

Leinster Council

has defended itself against the charge of apparent anomalies in the fixtures decisions for next year’s provincial championship.

Dublin have been drawn to play outside of Croke Park for the first time in 10 years but they will face the winners of Wicklow-Laois in Kilkenny's Nowlan Park.

Although many fixtures between the winners of a tie and another county are included in the schedule as having alternate venues depending on the winner of the first match, Laois are annoyed that should they win the match it won’t be played in Portlaoise.

According to Leinster chief executive Michael Reynolds, the decision was taken by the provincial council to accept the Competitions Control Committee's recommendation ahead of a competing motion from Laois.

“We will review how this works out at the end of next year,” said Reynolds, “but feeling was that Nowlan Park would be better able to accommodate the fixture because it had more seats”.

Asked would it not be fairer to allow counties with home draws to play at home regardless of their facilities, he said this would not be practical.

“The smaller the venue and its facilities, the less room for manoeuvre you have with concession tickets.

“There are some venues with capacities as low as 7,000 or 4,000. The resulting loss of revenue would have a knock-on effect on grants and many counties wouldn’t agree to that.”

Another anomaly sees Kerry, in their first year in the Leinster Hurling Championship, get two home fixtures when Galway, going into their eighth year in the province have yet to host a championship match.

“Although Galway haven’t had a home fixture in the championship since 2009 the vast majority of their fixtures are at neutral venues,” he said.