“If it’s viable to be outside of Croke Park, it will be outside of Croke Park.”
Dublin are set to play the winners of Wexford and Offaly in the quarter finals of the Leinster championship.
If they win that game, then the Dubs are more than likely set to be playing in their first provincial semi-final away from Croke Park, since they played Louth in Navan 26 years ago.
There has been increasing pressure to level the playing field and take Dessie Farrell’s side on the road more often, as it is seen as an advantage for the capital to be playing all other games on what is essentially home turf.
It was due to brought in last year, but provincial chairman, Pat Teehan, has said that the decision to keep it in Croke Park was due to COVID-19 restrictions.
“It was safer to bring them to Croke Park. That was the reason they were brought into Croke Park. There’s a fair chance it won’t be in Croke Park (this year) but, having said that, if Kildare, say, went on and won the league and Dublin draw Kildare in a Leinster semi-final, I don’t think there’s anywhere else you could put it other than Croke Park.
“But if it’s viable to be outside of Croke Park, it will be outside of Croke Park.”
Teehan said he is hoping for a more competitive Leinster championship this year with Dublin, who have won 16 of the last 17 titles, currently struggling and bottom in Division 1 of the Allianz League.
“I wouldn’t for a minute talk about Dublin’s demise but Dublin’s coming back. Like, there’s no point (saying otherwise), they have come back, we’ve all seen that in the league, how far they’ve come back and exactly how much we’ll know when the Championship is over.
“We saw with Kildare, if you go back to last year’s Leinster final, watching that game, you felt that Kildare didn’t believe they could win the game because they were playing Dublin who had won the previous 10 Leinster titles and they were All-Ireland champions.
“But when Dublin started to lose games, and you saw Kildare last Sunday, they went out with a different attitude. They went out believing they could win.”
