Hurling is in a bind

IN ALL FAIRNESS

The All-Ireland senior hurling championship might be continuing on without Tipperary and while we’d love to be still involved, it doesn’t feel like we are missing out on much.

From the very start of the round-robin format in 2018 (apart from 2020 and 2021) the hurling championship was the gift that kept on giving but it was never going to stay that way, however the fall off over the last two years is concerning.

I’ve never been one to get involved in the ‘Munster is better than Leinster’ debate as the tide could turn quickly but the manner of the double-digit defeats suffered by Dublin and Offaly in their respective quarter finals last weekend to Clare and Cork respectively further served to highlight the lob-sided nature of the All-Ireland race, post the provincial championships.

It isn’t all rosy in the Munster garden either. Limerick and Cork are far and away the two best teams but there is a drop-off to Clare who are still within one game of a second All-Ireland Final in three years but they don’t seem to have the same dash about them. They certainly have the ability to bring a big performance against Limerick in the semi-final but have they two big games in them over the next month with key players over the age of thirty, plus a growing injury list.

Tipperary have won two All-Irelands in the round-robin era but their inconsistency in the format is frustrating where they have failed to emerge from Munster on four occasions, recording just seven wins in 28 games, a conundrum they have failed to solve.

On the face of it, Waterford could make a claim to be the third best team in the championship this year despite failing to win a game. Why? Apart from their draw with Tipperary, in their three losses, none were by more than double-digit margins, compared to Clare who have suffered two big defeats to Limerick and Cork, yet they progressed due to the win over Waterford came in Ennis. Flip the venues, would the result have been different?

There has been a growing concern with the direction the game of hurling has been heading in, some of which I referred to in this column last week but now added to it is the competition structures, which at what should be the key part of the season is producing one-sided contests.

It has been exacerbated by the transformation in Gaelic Football, both in terms of the rule changes to make the game more attractive as a spectacle, as well as championship format. Both hurling and football brought in new group formats in 2018.

Hurling went with the round-robin element in the provincial championships, primarily because so few counties play the game at the elite level whereas football stayed knockout in the provinces before bring in the Super 8’s. Football has tweaked the group stage format a number of times, which I liked, but I do admit the new format for this year with a winner & losers section progression/knockout format has been an outstanding success. What it ensures is that all teams get to play at least into the middle of June, plus the best teams tend to find their way to the latter stage of the championship.

While the current hurling format has largely been successful, it does mean that teams have to start being eliminated at an earlier stage of late May because of provincial finals on the first weekend in June and the All-Ireland quarter finals two weeks later.

For arguments sake, if hurling followed a similar path of football, and returning the Munster Championship to straight knockout, you are reducing the number of games from 11 to 4, and such has been the success of the round-robin as a revenue generator with packed stadiums, it is impossible to see the Munster Council giving that up.

As well as that, you have the great traditional rivalries with everyone going to each other’s backyard on a biannual basis. If you create an All-Ireland group stage or knockout/losers’ format like football, the Tipp fans would certainly get a buzz out of going to Nowlan Park to play Kilkenny, but trips to Wexford, Galway, Dublin or Tullamore couldn’t carry the same lure as Ennis, Cork, Limerick or Waterford.

Tearing down the Munster round-robin because of the ills of its Leinster cousin isn’t a good enough reason. It would be sabotage in my view. Leinster counties need to get its own houses in order.

However, something is needed to breathe life into hurling later in the championship which is why I would be in favour of a fourth team getting out of each province, similar to minor level where it would at least provide two extra high profile games in June in the form of preliminary quarter finals (this year it would have been Clare v Kilkenny and Offaly v Waterford), and even if the Munster teams were to emerge as winners from both those games, it would mean from the quarter finals onwards being more competitive as the better teams progress with the cream rising towards the top.