WEXFORD'S county board will be protesting against the selection of Limerick as the venue for their National Hurling League semi final with Galway. County secretary Mick Kinsella said yesterday that the matter would be contested after Croke Park had earlier confirmed the semi finals, for the Gaelic Grounds and Kilkenny's Nowlan Park.

The latter venue is probably at the heart of the difficulty. It was selected with a Kilkenny Tipperary match in mind as Kilkenny were due a home fixture against Tipperary in a knockout League match.

Laois, however, beat Kilkenny and so the reason for setting different venues for the two semifinals has evaporated, but the plan remains unaltered and Wexford must hike across the country to Ia at a venue suspiciously suitable for the Offaly Galway meeting disrupted by Wexford's defeat of the Leinster champions.

"Our view is that it shows scant respect to the supporters of Wexford and we will be making a case to, have it changed," said Kinsella. "Half a dozen of our panel live in Gorey which is 150 miles from Limerick. There's no one in Galway as far away as that."

The county is feeling particularly unhappy as it went, along with Thurles as the location for last weekend's quarter finals, although the were easily the county most inconvenienced by the arrangements.

"Thurles was not a great option for us," said Kinsella, "but OK, it was an obvious choice for the other, three counties. We could have cribbed about it, but we didn't. It wasn't an issue."

The Games Administration Committee are sticking to their guns, but have a meeting next Tuesday which Wexford hope will reconsider the request to move to a more central location. Nowlan Park is considered too small to host a double bill.

Two obvious options are being ruled out because of the Laois Tipperary match. Thurles is affected because the Tipperary hurling public will be in Kilkenny and Portlaoise because of Laois's migration in the same direction.

Croke Park might have been an alternative, but the Colleges' A finals have already been allocated there. Dr Cullen Park in Carlow is also ruled out, because it is only 20 miles from Kilkenny.

Sean O Laoire, secretary of the GAC, said that the problem illustrated how the GAA was short of big, grounds suitable for such occasions.