Offaly GAA chairman Michael Duignan says additional tickets for the county's All-Ireland U20 hurling championship final with Tipperary have been sent to their clubs and that he is hopeful they will bring almost 20,000 supporters to Saturday's game at Nowlan Park.
Demand is huge in the Faithful County for what will be Offaly's second U20 final in a row, having been runners-up to Cork last year, but the 27,000-capacity venue was selected as it and the trophy are named after former GAA president James Nolan, who died 100 years ago this year.
Some Offaly fans were outraged after tickets sold out quickly on Ticketmaster Tuesday morning, which was exacerbated at the news that Tipperary GAA had taken a different approach and offered an initial allocation of 5,000 for sale through their clubs.
"It has been a manic couple of days. We always expected that. It's a great complaint to have, we're in an All-Ireland final with unprecedented interest. We're hoping to bring somewhere around 20,000 Offaly people to the match.
"There was a bit of over-buying, tickets have come back from Tipperary.
"We have been in contact with the clubs this afternoon to see if they needed a few and we're very hopeful at this stage that everyone will be facilitated."
"In case there are any GAA members that still haven't been looked after, get in touch with your clubs."
Duignan said he didn't regret the initial decision to direct Offaly supporters to buy tickets online, which he explained was an attempt to ensure families and friends could stay together.
"That was the advice we got," he said. "It is very complex. There are various different types of tickets: adults, OAPs, students, terrace... and for families trying to get tickets together, the advice we got was that if we broke them into our clubs, and gave them maybe 50 or 60 tickets each, they wouldn't have been able to facilitate families and groups of people.
"It would have been a disaster and we would have been passing that problem on to our clubs.
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"We have been involved in this type of thing before. We try to do things pretty right in the county and we knew tickets would come free.
"People know us all. We're not living in ivory towers. People have been in touch over the last couple of days ringing myself and the other officers of the county board.
"We're all volunteers, we're all available to them and we've managed to facilitate anybody that looked for tickets so far.
"In case there are any GAA members that still haven't been looked after, get in touch with your clubs."
Duignan hopes attention now turns to the game itself, as most of the team who were minor runners-up against Tipperary in 2022 and U20 finalists last year aim to make it third-time lucky and continue the resurgence of the county's hurling fortunes.
"The biggest thing that matters is the match on Saturday evening," he said.
"I'm hopeful from tomorrow morning that the ticket thing will be pretty much dead and buried and we'll be getting on to support this fantastic bunch of young players that we have, in what is going to be a brilliant sporting occasion.
"Tipperary have a fantastic team, we have a very good team and I think there won't be a puck of a ball in it.
"They have won three Leinsters in a row [including minor]. We have been coming from a low base. We were down in the Christy Ring Cup, we weren't going any place fast but we have really rebuilt the hurling in the county.
"These are great young men. They have a great love of the Offaly jersey and you hope that they get their reward. But sport isn't always like that.
"They have lost a couple of All-Ireland finals and they have to go and perform now at the weekend."
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