Saturday and Sunday will see the first inter-county games take place in the newly developed Páirc Uí Chaoimh with the All-Ireland SHC quarter-finals going ahead.
Defending champions Tipperary face Clare on Saturday while Waterford and Wexford will clash on Sunday.
The decision to host the games on two different days initially raised many an eyebrow. However, the decision will be justified by a sellout on each day, according to The Independent.
The newly renovated Páirc has a capacity of 45,000 and Cork County Board chairman Ger Lane has stated that almost all of the 21,000 stand tickets for this weekend’s big games have been sold at this stage. All four counties competing this weekend are expected to make use of their full allocation of tickets. Lane also expressed his belief that the voids will be filled by local Corkonians excited to catch a glimpse at their county’s new landmark home of GAA.
“We don’t expect many tickets back for Waterford and Wexford on Sunday but even Tipperary and Clare look like they’ll take up most [of their allocation] on Saturday too,” Lane said.
The state of the art stadium was scheduled to be opened in time to host the Munster football and hurling finals on July 2 and July 9 respectively, but a delay in project completion led to those fixtures being moved to Killarney and Thurles and an increasingly frustrated Leeside public.
The new stadium is set to host it’s first game on Wednesday night when Blarney take on Valley Rovers in a Cork Premier Intermediate Hurling Championship tie.
It now seems as though the long overdue opening of the stadium will have been worth the wait.
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Be sure to check out the latest episode of our weekly GAA podcast, The 16th Man. We speak to Cathal McCarron after Tyrone clinched back-to-back Ulster titles and former Tipperary hurler Shane McGrath ahead of Tipp vs. Clare this weekend.
https://soundcloud.com/punditarenagaa/tyrone-and-dublin-flex-muscle-and-were-joined-by-shane-mcgrath
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