Croke Park Classic Ireland - are you going to watch?

Get up early...especially on the West Coast.

Workers at Croke Park were busy Friday morning putting the final touches on what is essentially a Gaelic football field.

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A game spokesman said Friday the PSU-UCF crowd is expected to be more than 50,000, with 16,000 fans coming from the U.S. (an estimated 14,500 are PSU fans). Capacity for this game was set at approximately 70,000 fans.

Connections to Ireland are sparse. O’Leary’s grandfather was born in Cork, which is also the hometown of the Knights’ kicker, Sean Galvin. Penn State coach James Franklin’s parents were married in Ireland.

Nor do the locals know much about American football, but controversy aside O’Leary said he expected there to be a lot of interest at a stadium that will swallow up the American 100-yard field, even though its 82,300 capacity lags a little behind Penn State’s cavernous, 107,282-holding home.

“I think the Irish will be at the game,” he said. “I would assume they’d root for Galvin. And probably the name O’Leary doesn’t hurt.”

Tomas O’Se, a Gaelic football player, told the Irish Independent: “I just think it’s bad timing.

“I think it’s brilliant American Football can come here. It’s brilliant that soccer and rugby was here but I mean it’s a GAA field and it’s our field. There are players that love coming to Croke Park and playing and I just think I was bad planning to put an American football game in our busiest window of the year.”

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