The Leinster Council has no plans to move the province's senior hurling final out of Croke Park, chairman Martin Skelly has insisted.

Due to a combination of Kilkenny's dominance and the recession, the Leinster showpiece game has attracted disappointing attendances in recent years, but Skelly explained yesterday that counties are strongly in favour of keeping the final at GAA headquarters.

"There are tremendous facilities (in Croke Park). It is our national stadium, there is a spin-off for us," the Longford man said.

"We have signed up for that deal and committed to Croke Park for a certain number of days per annum. We did consider it a few years ago but the counties that were involved had no stomach for it. They wanted to come to Croke Park to play their Leinster final."

Skelly also admitted it was highly unlikely that Dublin's hopes of receiving provincial status for funding and administration purposes, as proposed in the county's 'Blue Wave' strategic report, would materialise.

"I wonder how serious they are about the whole thing. There's huge logistics and there are huge interactions between Dublin and Leinster. Obviously a huge amount of our resources go into (Dublin)," he said.

"I do not think that this is what the vast majority of followers in the capital want and I don't believe they are ready for that change." Tweet

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