KILLINAN END - Yearning for more from the hurling league

The notion of a League semi-final in March is still one to get the head around. It is one of the shames of the new split season that everything has to be so rushed but judging by the determination of the GAA President when asked about it in the wake of last year’s All-Ireland finals, when ‘over my dead body’ seemed to be the attitude to repeal, this is how it will be.

It does raise existential questions about the League itself. Is it now forever destined to be a ‘nod and wink’ competition with a field-opening type atmosphere? Amid all the allegations of Cork and Clare playing slow and loose in Ennis, you almost yearn for more side-line fury from the Waterford manager. Never are the stakes too low for the red mist not to descend. And by all accounts the direness of the fare at Nowlan Park was hard to exaggerate, not helped it has to be said by the weather. Still the fire burns eternal around Sixmilebridge.

Quite where Waterford stand at the end of the League is a puzzler. Last year, under Liam Cahill, they were the poster boys of the League. They had built on the championship progress of the previous year when there was no shame in coming up short against Limerick again. Two years running it took Limerick – who beat all-comers – to clip Waterford’s wings. Following on from this Waterford tore Cork to ribbons in the League final on a day which was supposed to be a Rebel coronation on the way to a rich and bountiful future. Yet, when Waterford’s Munster championship went the way of the pear suddenly the League was the enemy.

By this logic all four counties at the weekend should avoid winning at all costs as winning the League is injurious to your health. Unless of course you are Limerick in 2020, or Galway in 2017, and the rest. It is hard to know how much more beneficial the extra few challenge games are. Maybe there is something in the secrecy of it all where not all moves are open to scrutiny, but it’s difficult not to think there’s a whole lot of codology going on half the time. And often people codding themselves perhaps. You sense that these semi-finals will be wholly beneficial for all concerned. Surely a trip to Nowlan Park for a semi-final will be Pat Ryan’s dream match as Cork manager right now. They have been going well against teams of varying capacity, but this test always rings true. Kilkenny might not be at maximum readiness yet but if Cork’s young prospects come through this, they will have earned it. They also meet a team they will avoid for the foreseeable future in the championship so the proverbial mind games will be non-existent. It is notable how rarely these counties have met down the years in significant League games such as finals and semi-finals given their broader prominence. There will be disappointment in Cork not to jump this hurdle give the positive vibes during the League, especially when you factor in Kilkenny as a work in progress. But it remains an acid test of Cork’s stomach.

Tipp’s trip to the Gaelic Grounds will test progress in many ways too. While Limerick have bigger fish to fry as the year winds on, it is impossible to see how they can hit this game at less than full tilt in front of their own supporters. If anything causes Limerick to be unseated during the year, it will hardly be ability or enthusiasm for the fray. Their nemesis might well be the sheer number of games involved. In that respect they could view the League play-offs as activity that might have been better avoided. For all Tipp’s altitude and high scoring, the All-Ireland champions will now have the scent of a League title in their nostrils, not least because they almost have to go for it. It was a very different time when these same two counties had to go to obscure places to sort out a League semi-final. In the early ‘70s Tipp and Limerick had a very close-fought rivalry. In 1971, Limerick won the League Final in Cork by a point, before succumbing in the Killarney rain a few months later in the Munster Final by the slimmest margin again. Two years later, when they could not even agree to toss a coin, they had to go to Nowlan Park where they played a draw in a League semi-final. The replay venue was never going to be simple either.

Hard to imagine a League semi-final in Birr but that’s where they ended up. It was the same venue where Tipp beat Galway on the road to the 1971 All-Ireland final and if you were in Lorrha or Portumna it might make sense. For Tipp and Limerick the only argument for Birr was that it was better than risking home advantage. For the record, Francis Loughnane sparkled like fireworks but Limerick won that replay in extra-time. At least the venue has a whiff of logic this time around. Let’s hope we have a Francis Loughnane impersonator in Blue and Gold.