You cannot have it both ways on the Split Season

Killinan End

Suddenly the wilderness has been cleared. After six weeks of twists and turns the path to the end of the hurling year is visible. If this were the Aintree Grand National back in the day, we’d have Peter O’Sullevan’s velvet tones telling us that were at the elbow. It has been remarked upon that in early June there are now just seven senior inter-county hurling matches remaining. Three hopefully prime hurling months ahead of us with absolute minimal activity to be enjoyed at inter-county level.

Wexford’s Tony Dempsey commented recently on the dearth of opportunities for young people across the summer holidays to enjoy inter-county matches and the consequent loss of promotional value for the games. No doubt there are plenty out there who would dismiss this and point to the apparent rude health of the Munster championship but perhaps they might consider that Dempsey is speaking in a more local context.

What is in the next three months for Wexford? Back in 2022 & ’23 the Model County took the split season at face value and had their County hurling final in August. A year later, realising that their County champions were waiting several months for their Leinster championship fixture they were back to a November County final – same as thirty years ago. And yet high summer is also a vacuum for the Wexford Senior hurling team with all the local interest they would engender.

Limerick and Cork make their own importance these days, but this does not necessarily lift all boats. While there will be a counter-argument to everything it does seem remarkable to restrict the season in such a manner for the sake of the three or four counties that remained involved through August and September. Does the club hurler in Laois or Waterford or Carlow benefit from Kilkenny not hurling in August or September? Maybe but it's hard to see it. But that appears to be the net effect of the split season.

Elongating the hurling championship season by another month or even six weeks would have minimal effect on the maximum number of counties. If the All-Ireland hurling semi-finals were taking place on the first or second weekend in August rather than a month earlier by definition just four counties would be affected, and two of those would have that burden lifted fairly quickly. The irony that it was two of hurling's great counties, Kilkenny & Cork, which led the charge against moving the big dance from its traditional September date. Presumably these counties know from long and glorious experience how to juggle a club championship with the very welcome load of preparing for an All-Ireland Final.

But anybody who supports the split season unequivocally while at the same time shaking their heads at the ludicrously inappropriate end to the Munster Championship is truly in a state of circular bewilderment. You cannot have it both ways. There is no excuse for this as a resolution at the end of an evening like that. It's a small country; this is not Real Madrid and AC Milan travelling to Istanbul to meet in a major final where a replay is implausible and impractical. This would be a very easily organised sporting-occasion-of-the-year next weekend in Páirc Uí Chaoimh. Think 1926, 1944, 1987, 1991, 1998 (yikes!) – never was one of these re-runs devoid of drama and excitement. All that is needed for this to happen these days is time. However, in the new hurling world that seems to be the one thing we don't have. We can’t have a potential Munster Hurling Final replay delaying the Louth or Leitrim County football championships.

Mention of Kilkenny and Cork reminds us of one gleaming nugget of novelty in the midst of the year where much of the landscape is taking on a familiar shape. Some eleven years have elapsed since these two counties won their provincial titles in the same year. Grotesque, unbelievable, and bizarre this might be, but it is not entirely unprecedented. Back in 1966 in Cork’s great breakout year these counties emerged from the provinces together for the first time since 1953. A thoroughly novel final saw the Black & Amber and Blood & Bandage parade around Croke Park together for the first time since the blistering 1947 All-Ireland Final.

Getting back to the familiar - in 2019 Tipp met, by default, the Joe MacDonagh winners when Laois beat Leinster’s third team Dublin in the preliminary game. An unconvincing performance by Tipp ultimately led to autumn glory. Four years later, in the early days of Liam Cahill’s tenure, Tipp gave an emerging Offaly an unmerciful trimming in Tullamore in a preliminary quarter-final. Yet, the subsequent fallout was a laboured performance against Galway in the quarter-final. Perhaps this reminds that winning against Laois is the thing – forget the manner, the margin, the specifics of the game, the over-analysis.

The more interesting preliminary quarter-final might be the one in Newbridge if Kildare can somehow put a lid on the barrels of porter being thrust at them by well-wishers. Dublin beat last year’s Joe MacDonagh winners, Offaly, by just three points in Leinster’s first round in April. With the listlessness of Dublin against Galway, and fluidity of Kildare’s hurling last weekend the red flags are obvious. Maybe too obvious.