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Published 11:14 1 Sept 2016 BST
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But they are all gone, it would seem. Thankfully.
Seriously? What would it say about the game of hurling if the All-Ireland final could not sell out Croke Park. Fair enough it is the fifth decider featuring Kilkenny and Tipperary since 2009, but it is not as if the last four have been duds - most of them have been stone cold classics.
Both sides emerged from excellent semi-finals also - the Waterford-Kilkenny two-parter proving particularly entertaining.
Is hurling in such a bad way that the biggest game of the year featuring two of the game's big three and the most dominant two teams of the last decade is not an instant sellout?
When fewer than 35,000 showed up at Croke Park for the drawn semi-final between Waterford and Kilkenny I wrote a piece asking if Kilkenny's dominance was the problem.
I was slammed from all sides. People blaming the recession, the cost of a trip to Dublin, the respective populations of the two counties and some non-existent Kilkenny bias for my nonsense reasoning.
I included a graph and everything. Which I have not updated to reflect only 30, 358 showed up in Thurles for the replay. So the distance to travel cannot be blamed on that front.
According to the preliminary census results there are just under 100,000 people in Kilkenny and over 110,000 in Waterford - placing them in the lower half of populations, but far ahead of much of Connacht, the border counties and the Midlands.
Tipperary is home to just under 160,000 people - or twice the capacity of Croke Park.
Chuck in the tickets that go to the Limerick minors, sponsors and every county board in Ireland, it is hard to see how tickets for the biggest day in the hurling calendar were still available just days ahead of the match.
Contrast the slow take-up to the football final. Granted Dublin is Ireland's metropolis, but already you have Mayo fans mobilising and desperate fans sending you desperate WhatsApp messages.
As soon as Tipperary beat Galway I had a text from a friend asking me to keep an eye out for a final ticket. Her aunt from Boston was coming home specially.
She got sorted quick enough. Someone should have told her there was no real rush.
In-depth chat with Michael Fennelly in the GAA Hour Hurling Show. Subscribe here on iTunes
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