The Hurling Championship, Is It Time For Change?

This is something that has been at me since after the All-Ireland Hurling Final but I thought it would be better to post it after everything had died down after the football final and this wouldn't get somewhat ignored.

As we all know Kilkenny and and Tipperary played out their third final in a row. Such an occurance has not happened since 1903 when Cork hammered London in their third meeting in as many years. To add to this who would bet against tipp and the cats playing in next years final? Not me for one. The only team capable of challanging this duopaly at the moment it would seem is Dublin and possibly on a long shot Galway if they got their act together. This is clearly not a heathly situation for our sport to be in, and in recent years many traditional hurling counties like Cork, Wexford, Clare and others have fallen back from been able to compete for the Liam McCarthy cup to almost making up the numders bar the odd great performence with would have been the norm in times of old. While a great effort has been put into development of lesser counties the stronger counties that I mentsioned above have been largely ignored and forgotten and aloud to slip back by their county boards and others.

The structure in place in the Liam McCarthy is obviously not helping when Kilkenny only need to play 4 matchs to win the All-Ireland and Cork go from playing Tipperany in a tough and gruelling match and then playing Laois and scoring 10-20. Something needs to be done and soon before things get worse.

The Camogie Championship had a similar problem and turned their championship into a league in which they put the the 8 best teams who played a round robin format and at the end the top 4 play two semi-finals and then the final. This is a system that I think could suit the Hurling Championship very well as it would allow fans to see their teams more and allow fairer competition.

My idea would go as follows:
10 teams in top league
Each team plays 9 matchs, 5 home and 4 away or visa versa, 1 against each team.
Top 4 go into semi finals
10th place team gets relegated to a second division of a similar format (or the Christy Ring Cup)
9th place team plays a play-off against the 2nd place team in the 2nd division.

This is a far superior format imo and is better for fans who we get to see their teams play at leats 4 home matchs in any given year. For this to happen the National League would be scraped and the Provincial Championships moved back to take up that space. The teams in Division 1 would be Kilkenny, Tipp, Dublin, Waterford, Limerick, Galway, Cork, Antrim, Wexford and Clare. This would mean Offaly, Carlow, Westmeath and Laois dropping down to the 2nd division.

Please feel free to give your own opinions and coments on the matter. Cheers

In short.

Yes, absolutely. The intensity and history of the Munster championship is the only thing standing in the path of this.

It'd take a lot of getting used to for the fans and players. getting yourself right for a series of games is a different mentality to the championship.

Something has to happen and this is as good as any. This isn't knee jerk stuff either.

I'd agree it's time for a change. There ought to be a change in the calender for both the hurling and football championships. Everyone should be playing a more equal amount of games for a start. In hurling though the problem is also one of development and geography. Compared to football hurling is not played to a high enough standard in many counties and with its main heartland being in Munster it has the strongest of the provincial championships. We've already had Antrim and Galway switching province and although I'd agree with something helping some other traditional hurling counties, any re-jigging of the hurling champs wont solve the problem in the long term imo. Hurling has to be brought more into the forefront in counties where it can co-exist with football to have strong counties in a more even geographical spread and raise standards to produce more serious contenders.

I think this would give all teams of winning something. While the Provincial Championship would be going on another competition for the weaker counties would take place possible as a double header with the main matchs. Those competitions could be a 'B' Championship or something else all together while the leagues would be all similar to the 1st division in must senses or the existing Christy Ring Cup and the 2 other competitions. It has worked well with the Camogie Championship so theres no reason it wouldn't with the hurling.

I play underage hurling in one of the worst counties for hurling in the county so I have first hand experience of weaker county hurling. First of all there is 3 clubs in Fermanagh which play hurling, not a good start. One of those (Knocks Grattens) has good youth but a poor senior team. Another (Lisnaskea) had a good senior team but it is dying out because it has poor youth. The by far and away best team (Lisbellaw) has both a good youth and senior teams (for the level they are at). The main problem, in my opinion is that only Lisnaskea is a dual sport club. The other two are dedicated to hurling and hurling only, which is great don't get me wrong. But what I'm trying to say is that 19 of the clubs (and the county board with them) which play football but put no effort ever at all in promoting hurling. They are all interested in trying to achieve success in football by focussing their youth on that and ignoring the other great code. This is the mentality which is biggest obstacle to be overcome. Check this thread if you want to see a typical Fermanagh reaction to hurling. (Oops apparently I'm not allowed to post external links in the 7 days after joining, well PM me if any of you are interested in watching backward Fermanagh men slag off hurling)

My solution to county board-level institutional ignorance that there should be some sort of law requiring the 'football' clubs to attempt to field youth hurling teams to say u12 level. Sure some families will only want their child playing football because that is the Fermanagh way, but it is better than nothing and I am sure eventually most clubs would regularly field at u8 to u12. The 3 already established hurling clubs should not, to begin with, play these new formed teams, well because they would hammer them. The 19 new teams should play each other in a B format and gradually introduce the older teams, and whilst many large losses will occur eventually progress will be made. This will never be an easy process (unless you are Dublin and receive euros by the lorryload to promote it) but people who expect instant results are deluded.

On the other side of the chicken vs egg debate, we have the promotion of hurling from the provincial bureaucrats trying to improve it in weaker counties. Based on my experience a coach comes down from Belfast or wherever they play hurling in Antrim I'm not sure, every year or so and takes 3-4 sessions of 'County Elite Training Camps' which is a typical name for the training sessions, for every age group from u14 to u17. I think this is a good idea, where people from Antrim who have better knowledge of hurling and the skills it requires and who are also better teachers than backward Fermanagh men come down to Fermanagh and improve the attendees' hurling game. But the problem with this is they never back it up. They organise a blitz or two, pack up and go home. This is the same across the board in Fermanagh. For example they have tried to infiltrate the schools, and have initiatives running there. But again it never lasts too long. It is tokenism in its bluntest form. It is clear that they want to keep Antrim, Down and maybe Derry/Armagh well prepared and improve them but it is the Fermanagh/Cavan/Monaghan etc that are in most dire need. The Ulster Council don't give a damn, the Fermanagh County Board brush it under the carpet and the clubs in Fermanagh pretend they can't see it. And I for one am sick of it.

my club is going to Fermanagh on Sunday. I might head down

Curry,

I'm fully behind this idea. unfortunately Croke park aren't........................

I won't be there Rebel, a Lisbellaw man would not be welcome at a 'Skea match..

[quote="John Cregan"]Curry,

I'm fully behind this idea. unfortunately Croke park aren't........................[/quote]

There in lies the problem it would seem. How did those people get in charge of the gaa

I think erne makes a good point that teams should be made play both I mean would Kilkenny be the force they are if they played football? Its unfair on the counties that play both and gives them an unfair disadavantages.

God if I keep going like this I'll end up a politician

I'd say if Kilkenny put their hurlers out for the footballers, the hurlers would be better at football than the original footballers

Thats probably ture!
They would have better fitness for one thing anyway.