Vikings Coach Wants To Bring GAA Influence Into Camp For NFL Dublin Game

The second team for this year's maiden NFL Dublin game were confirmed on Tuesday, with the Minnesota Vikings set to face the Pittsburgh Steelers at Croke Park on September 28.

As one of the NFL's designated teams to be marketed in Ireland, the Steelers' desire to play a regular-season game in GAA HQ was established over two years ago. It was confirmed in February that those dreams had become reality.

Their opponents, the Vikings, are well-versed in playing on the road. Bar the Jacksonville Jaguars, who have played a game in London every year since 2013, no team has won more International Series games than the Vikings, who boast a perfect four from four record from their past visits to London.

Minnesota will play back-to-back international games this season, travelling to London once again the week after the NFL Dublin game to face the Cleveland Browns at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

However, it is the trip to Dublin for a historic first-ever regular season NFL game on these shores that will most excite the Vikings' fanbase.

The game will take place at the historic home of the GAA on Jones' Road, with American football following in the footsteps of soccer and rugby in calling Croker a temporary home.

The immense history of the stadium is something that Vikings head coach Kevin O'Connell is hoping to tap into ahead of September's game.

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When Leinster hosted Northampton Saints in Croke Park for last year's Champions Cup semi-final, the English side took to the hallowed turf in their captain's run with hurleys, testing out Ireland's national game (something that riled up Joe Canning). Leinster could also be seen on the field with Gaelic footballs.

Northampton also enlisted a historian to further inform them on the history of the ground (specifically the GAA's significance to Ireland and the huge historical significance of Bloody Sunday in 1920).

Minnesota Vikings head coach Kevin O'Connell was asked at a media event on Tuesday whether that was something he would hope to do with his team ahead of September's NFL Dublin game.

I absolutely would. I think part of the experience of this is...it would be very easy to just say, 'Hey, it's just another game.'

[That] may be our preparation for the actual football learning, our opponent, you know, study the Xs and Os practising in a way to prepare our players...that's one thing.

But then it would be shortsighted by me as the head coach to not really engage in learning about the great history. You know, I've already learned in a very short amount of time about many aspects of what makes Croke Park so, so special and an amazing venue for us to get the opportunity to play at.

I know our players will feel the same and now we get the opportunity.

The significance of the occasion for Irish sport is not lost on O'Connell, who confirmed that he can trace his ancestral roots back to Ireland at Tuesday's media day.

"To be the first in such a wonderful place like Dublin with such a great sports culture already, it's a great venue in Croke Park, and 82,000 plus," O'Connell said.

"When you think about opportunities to play in unique atmospheres and environments that are experiences for your players, what better way to do that than to play in Dublin for the first time in the regular season?"

It's set to be a special day on Jones' Road when the Vikings and Steelers run out onto the Croke Park turf come the end of September.

Eoin Harrington reporting from Dublin Castle