KILLINAN END - Is the league serving a purpose

It is a curiosity of the National Hurling League that the groups so closely mirror the provincial championship groupings.

In Tipperary’s section we see Galway and Westmeath but we have more familiar opponents in Waterford, Limerick, and Cork. Only Clare are missing from the Munster championship set-up. And in their group they are in with five Leinster counties which reflects another interesting element of the League’s top tier – the fact that there are seven Leinster counties (including Galway) and just five from Munster. Are there really seven Leinster counties capable of competing? And does it genuinely help teams to become more competitive if they are in the highest grade?

Time will tell on that one and we may not have to wait too long for some proper comparison with championship hurling. At the weekend Cork travel to Westmeath which will be a re-run of their All-Ireland series meeting last year at the same venue. All manner of records must have been broken that day as Cork hit 40 points and had 24 on the board by half-time. An interesting footnote in this game was that it was Patrick Horgan’s lowest scoring game of the championship which was perhaps lucky for Westmeath. It also suggests that what Johnny Giles used to call ‘the sunshine boys’ came out to play when Cork had Westmeath on the rack and the central involvement of Horgan as chief hod-carrier up-front was no longer essential.

But the question remains in relation to the League if Cork and Westmeath should be at the same level based on the championship outcome? We are in an era where scores come like a flood which does not help matters. In last year’s Joe McDonagh Cup Westmeath played Offaly, Kerry, Antrim, and Laois twice. Despite relatively modest opposition, only once in five games did they concede less than 20 points even though they won several games comfortably. That does say something about the cheapness of many scores these days but also makes you fret for such teams against a team such as Cork which, for all their shortcomings, can score with great fluency when circumstances allow.

 

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