Sunday week’s Galway-Mayo Connacht football final is to be played at Croke Park, it has been confirmed.
The counties have a long-running home and away arrangement and the game was due to be played at Elverys MacHale Park this time around but a bigger crowd can be accommodated at GAA headquarters, where 18,000 will attend with the game throwing in at 1.30pm.
Had the game remained in Castlebar, it would have been open to just 3,600, around 10% of the ground’s capacity.
It’s not unprecedented for provincial deciders outside of Leinster to be played at Croke Park, with the Ulster senior football finals having been staged there from 2004-06 as it was felt that the event had outgrown St Tiernach’s Park in Clones in that particular era.
Also, the 2018 Leinster hurling final replay between Galway and Kilkenny took place at Semple Stadium in Thurles due to a clash with a Michael Bublé concert at Croke Park.
Having also met in the qualifiers in 2019 and last year’s Connacht final, it will be the third successive year that the counties have faced off in a knockout Championship tie with Mayo having won the last two encounters.
Indeed, Galway haven’t eliminated their fierce rivals from the Championship since an opening round win in Castlebar in 1998 en route to a famous All-Ireland success under former Mayo boss John O’Mahony.
