The Limerick-Waterford All-Ireland hurling semi-final has been delayed by 30 minutes after a truck carrying bales of hay shed its load on the N7.
The incident caused a tailback of up to four miles on a route where supporters from both counties converge and after consultation with Gardai, the throw-in at Croke Park was put back to 5.30pm.
Both teams had arrived at the ground in plenty of time for the original 5pm start, with Waterford travelling by bus and Limerick by train, though the decision was made to ease the pressure on traffic and avoid fans trying hastily to arrive on time.
Croke Park Stadium Director Peter McKenna explained: “There was a lot of water on the road and that reduced the motorway to two lanes.
“Then there was a truck carrying hay and it shed its load and that just created bedlam, it brought everything down to one lane.
“So we talked it through with the Gardai, just to see how quickly that gets to clear or doesn’t clear. We met again at four o’clock, we felt the traffic was still heavy, there was a three or four mile tailback.
“The safest thing to do was to delay the game by half an hour, let the teams know, they wouldn’t really have started their training at that stage, or their pre-match routine. And that’s the decision we took.
“So I think it is in the interests of health and safety, to try and make sure it doesn’t cause havoc fro the preparations of the team, for RTE, Sky because at this time of the evening it hits their evening schedules and so on. That’s the rationale for it.”
Although the permitted crowd of 24,000 is the biggest at Croke Park since early last year, it’s relatively small for an All-Ireland semi-final though McKenna said that there was still a fear that “people would then start to rush to get to the game in order to make the throw-in time”.
He added: “If we get a message out, once people hear it on radio, they’ll just follow the traffic normally and won’t try and crush themselves in. The extra half-hour, we believe, will be more than sufficient to get everybody in.
“And it’s not a full house, it’s 24,000, so we have a bit of flexibility in terms of turnstiles and that set-up.”
