Pat Ryan hopeful Cork can provide value for money in Munster final

Irish Examiner

2 days ago

Cork manager Pat Ryan has said Munster SHC final ticket prices are expensive, but is hopeful of providing Cork supporters with value for money after their shortchanging of fans at the Gaelic Grounds the weekend before last.
Adult tickets for the Cork-Limerick decider on Saturday week are priced at €50 for the stand and €40 for the terrace, an increase of €5 on last year's provincial decider between Limerick and Clare.
Ryan singled out the price of terrace tickets as being on the steep side. He added that when demand is as strong as it is for this second championship instalment of Cork and Limerick, prices will always be raised.
'It is, without a shadow of a doubt,' Ryan replied when asked if the increased ticket prices were asking a lot of supporters. 'But what I'd say is that it's definitely expensive if we give the kind of performance to Cork fans that we gave the last day. If we give a performance like we were able to last year against Limerick, it'll be well worth it. If we perform the exact same way as the last day above in Limerick, there wasn't much value for money for people who went up. Our job is to make sure that there's value for money for fans going.
'If the tickets are hard to come by, the prices go up. If the tickets aren't, they'll be down, and that's the same whether it's hurling, football, concerts or whatever it is. But it is difficult for people. I'd especially think that there should be a different terrace price. That's probably a bit of a cost, but I don't set those things.'
Corner-back Ger Millerick (fractured finger) will miss the Munster final, while Ryan stated that if Rob Downey (hamstring), Niall O'Leary (groin), and Declan Dalton (hamstring) don't train this Saturday, they won't be in consideration to start against Limerick. None of the latter three featured against Waterford.
Elsewhere, Galway manager Micheál Donoghue wants a greater gap between provincial round-robin games. While Donoghue does not agree with the annual calls for additional teams to emerge from the Munster round-robin, he does believe May 25 is too early in the calendar for five of the 11 Liam MacCarthy counties to be finished their business for 2025.
The space in the calendar for greater gaps between round-robin games, he said, can be found by shortening a League that fewer and fewer teams are interested in winning.
'Three weeks on the spin in the round-robin is really, really hard. There should definitely be another break in between,' said the Galway boss.
'We talk about player welfare, and I think sometimes the powers-that-be forget the boys are still amateur. You've still got to get up, go to work, and do the day job, and if you have kids. Then you've always got recovery, so it's a massive toll. In the current structure, maybe an extra week or two weeks just to space it out for those elements.
'The league needs to be restructured. As an example, we had half our league games played in 14 days this year, which was absolutely mental. So the structure of that should be looked at because if you look at it the last few years, teams are just trying to navigate themselves through it, just keep their status.
'So maybe split it up into different groups where you're guaranteed to get maybe three or four games. And if you want to progress, then you keep your foot down. If you don't, you're happy enough.'
While very much in favour of all counties hurling into June, as articulated above, he's not in favour of diluting the jeopardy of the provincial round-robins by allowing more than three teams progress.
'This time of the year when teams start getting knocked out, particularly in Munster, there's always a shout to say 'why are they gone' and 'why are they still in it' and whatever. That's the way it's been orchestrated and that's the way it has been, so you've just got to soak it up.'