GAA Digest: Kilkenny easily handles Dublin

Tipperary Wins, Down Wins, Home Advantage, Mayo Wins

He tweeted, “Tough facing into Monday morning knowing you should be in an Ulster final. Worst defeat of career, words can’t describe the disappointment.”

Home Advantage

WEXFORD must play in Dublin’s backyard when they meet the All-Ireland champions in Croke Park on Sunday – and star player Aindreas Doyle is none too pleased by the prospect.

The fact that Dublin will get to play the Leinster semifinal on what is effectively their home pitch irks the talented Doyle.

He told the Irish Examiner, “I’ve been known to bring this up in the past. I think last year Dublin played 14 games and 11 of them were here, between league and championship.

“That’d be unheard of in any other sport. If Kerry played 11 of their 14 games down in Killarney we’d probably be seeing Kerry win the All-Ireland every year. It has to be an advantage and it’s not right.”

The stats show that Dublin have played 37 of their last 38 championship games at Croke Park.

“Obviously there’s huge monetary conditions attached to it and the GAA are making massive money when Dublin play here,” added Doyle.

“But while mentioning it now, that won’t be something we’ll be looking at as we go towards Sunday.”

Mayo Wins

MAYO hammered Leitrim by 22 points in the Connacht semifinal on Sunday, but manager James Horan wasn’t jumping through hoops in Castlebar.

“We’ll look at the good things we did and we know we made a few mistakes, and we’ll look at that too,” said Horan ahead of a Connacht final clash with Sligo next month.

“It took us a while to get going, but when we did, and when we moved the ball, we looked quite good. Our subs that came on did well for us as well and added a little bit of impetus to the game.

“But when you are running away with it, it can be easy to come on to a team that is so dominant. But the guys that came on looked very, very sharp which is very pleasing. We looked a bit ring-rusty in the first 20 minutes, but we’re in a Connacht final and we’ll be ready to play Sligo.”

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Nster.com