Hurling left in summer wilderness with intercounty refresh needed
Hurling has taken a back seat with knockout Gaelic football clashes taking over in recent weeks
As it stands, there are six teams left in the race for the Liam MacCarthy Cup and the two All-Ireland Quarter-Finals both take place in FBD Semple Stadium this weekend.
Clare and Dublin meet on Saturday evening before Cork and Offaly collide at the same venue less than 24 hours later with Leinster champions Galway and Munster champions Limerick awaiting in the All-Ireland semi-finals but the main problem here is that it is all very much under the radar.
Even this weekend when the hurling counties would normallly expect to be the centre of attention, the two marquee fixtures are likely to be overshadowed by a couple of high profile All-Ireland football championship fixtures.
It’s something that has hindered the hurling season in a sense and while the provincial championships maintaining the link to the All-Ireland series has its advantages, it does mean there is a fallow look to the latter stages of the hurling summer.
Gaelic football has gone the other direction with the new rules and the big teams facing each other more regularly, resulting in bumper crowds and an overall better product compared to what was on offer a couple of years ago.
Hurling is the one remaining outlet of the four codes of the association that has the provincials feeding into qualification for the knockout stages of the All-Ireland and it’s an area that may need to be looked at especially with Gaelic football getting this newfound limelight.
The Leinster and Munster round-robin - the way it is currently structured - also means that a lot of the more heavyweight hurling fixtures commence at an early stage of the season, while Gaelic football tends to take over at this time of the year.
Former GAA President Nickey Brennan was recently appointed to lead a Leinster hurling championship review and will be joined by the Leinster GAA chief executive Michael Reynolds, the GAA’s head of hurling William Maher, and Leinster GAA servicing officer John Haughney. The committee will expand in the coming weeks and Brennan admits that hurling is playing second fiddle with Gaelic football as it stands.
"It’s all about Gaelic football at the moment and that is the reality of it,” he said. “The general talk and overall coverage of hurling, be it print media, radio or television, has fallen down the order big time. Things like the World Cup and the end of the rugby season come into it too and make it more difficult so it’s a tough old time.
"The other main issue is clearly the Leinster Championship and what that may involve. That discussion hasn’t really started yet and it’s still being finalised in terms of reference so it is a tough spot for hurling when you take all of that into consideration.”
Up to last weeeknd all 16 teams in the race for the Sam Maguire Cup were still standing in the All-Ireland football championship while it’s now almost a month since Kilkenny, Wexford, Kildare, Tipperary and Waterford exited the hurling side of things. Bar the provincial finals, it has been a quiet space for hurling supporters with the preliminary All-Ireland quarter-finals no longer in existence.
It’s not an easy fix for either side of the debate but it’s clear that it’s not a satisafctory return from a hurling perspective as things stand.
“The first thing I want to say is that I’m not here to criticise the football side of things and in fact I admire what they have done with the sport as there has been some very exciting games and I’ve no issue with that at all. The hurling champioinship is completely lost as result however and you have to take into account that it’s much shorter aswell and there is only three games left after this weekend.
“It just doesn’t get a chance to blossom at all with everything that is going on with the football side and it’s the reality of life at this time of the year,” the Conahy Shamrocks clubman continued.
The two All-Ireland hurling quarter-finals that take place at the weekend do at least have the free-to-air live elements with both games on RTÉ Television. The Cork and Offaly clash looks set to attract a bumper crowd with huge interest in the game locally, but in an overall sense, there is a bit of work to do to grasp the national attention outside of the All-Ireland semi-finals and final.
“The solution to it all is a good question and if we are going to continue with the way the hurling season is run where everything is finished over a shorter period of time, there is going to be a bit of a dilemma there and it’s going to be hard to see how they get any more mileage out of it all,” the Community Radio broadcaster outlined.
“The format in the football championship has clearly worked very well and you have to give them credit for that,” he said. “Despite what is being said, it does look as if hurling is not in a great space at the moment in terms of publicity and you’d hope that maybe after the weekend, with a couple of good games, it might just come back onto the front pages again. It’s tough going when it’s up against some serious football games and I’m not overly optimistic as to where the sport will fit in with the overall scheme of things going forward to be honest.”
The roaring success of the Munster Championship makes things extra difficult, with Brennan envisaging change on the Leinster side of the house.
“It’s not a complaint as such but the most successful provincial championship in either hurling or football is the Munster Hurling Championship and that’s not going to change. Munster has a bit of an issue there as they have two very strong teams out of the hurling championship at an early stage with those teams out of action for a huge length of time and they need to figure out how to rectify that and address that but that is their dilemma.
“Leinster are in a situation not just with the Tier One counties as such but the Tier Two as well as it’s the province they use at senior and underage level to see development counties get their opportunity. All of this will come up for discussion when we review the scene over the next month or two. We have to see if there is a way we in Leinster can jazz that up a bit and there’s no simple answers to that to be honest about it either as we’d still have to do things within an eight week window.”