Leinster Council secretary Michael Delaney has revealed that they had considered moving next Sunday's provincial hurling final out of Croke Park. With the attendance for the clash of Kilkenny and Wexford not expected to exceed 25,000, the final could have been comfortably accommodated in Nowlan Park, Wexford Park or Portlaoise but, according to Delaney, plans to stage it at a provincial venue were scuppered by the replayed Wexford-Dublin semi-final. "The most we can hope for is 25,000 and that will be lost in Croke Park," Delaney said. "We talked about it this year and I'd say that but for the Dublin-Wexford semi-final going to a replay, we'd probably have gone ahead and moved the final. But the extra week made it impractical to switch venues at short notice. "We would have been thinking in terms of asking Wexford and Kilkenny to toss for venue and alternate the next time the counties met in the final." And despite the involvement of renowned crowd-pullers Dublin in the Leinster football final against Wexford on July 20, Delaney isn't expecting the game to be a sell-out. "We would expect a crowd around the same size as Sunday's (67,075)," he added. "Wexford won't suddenly have huge football support and I'd imagine the crowd will be between 65,000 and 70,000. "But that's not the way we judge the seasons and it's marvellous to see Wexford coming through as a new face on the scene. There's been a lot of development work in the county and it's paid off." Tweet

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