What’s at stake in Croke Park this Saturday?
There is a suspicion that the GAA’s special congress is something of an afterthought. The major campaign to persuade counties that a round-robin format at the quarter-final stage of the football championship was worth a three-year trial could be said to have created a backwash that something needed to be done for hurling.
There is little doubt that as soon as the football experiment was adopted at last February’s congress there was an unease that the new structure might undermine hurling by swamping the climactic weeks of the summer.
At the post-congress media conference, director general Páraic Duffy was quick to react to the suggestion that hurling would be "dwarfed".
“If the hurling community – and this is really important to us – if they wish to look at their championship in terms of the number of games they have and so on then we’ll look at that.
“But I wouldn’t try to force that. We looked at football because the demand was there; the uachtarán stated this when he came into office. There was a very loud cry that we do something with the football championship. If the hurling counties would like us to look at hurling then we will do that.
“But no matter what happens, even if there is no change in hurling in the next couple of years and there will have to be something to accommodate Galway and Antrim, we will design a fixtures programme that reflects the needs of both sports, club and intercounty. We will make sure that hurling is not dwarfed.”
Accordingly the ball was set rolling on the package now known as the Central Council proposals, essentially creating a round-robin competition at the start, rather than finish, of the championship, which would decide the provincial finalists. It also provides a round-robin structure for the grade championships, such as the Christy Ring Cup and promotion and relegation to and from the MacCarthy Cup.
There is an argument that the above changes are of less relevance to the hurling championship than they are to the GAA calendar. It mightn’t make sense that adding fixtures to the intercounty calendar can actually clear space for club activity but round-robin formats have the advantage of certainty and involve no replays.
They are the centrepiece of the experimental football season being trialled over the next three years and also of the Central Council proposals. If accepted at the weekend, this means amongst other things that April can be cleared for the clubs. It will also assist Croke Park, together with other initiatives already accepted, to increase the number of designated club weekends from 16 last year to 24 in 2018.
Nothing wrong
Among the obstacles to this is the current Leinster preliminary championship group, contested by four counties two of which enter the provincial championship proper. Under the proposal, they would become Tier 2 counties and contest promotion to the following year's MacCarthy Cup but a number of those potentially affected, Laois, Meath and Offaly, have put down an amendment to allow the Tier 2 finalists access to the same season's Leinster championship, which would greatly complicate the Central Council plans.
An irony of hurling in the past two decades has been that of the more conservative game – for instance the reluctance to confront indiscipline as vigorously as has been done in football – nonetheless leading the way in intercounty reforms such as the calendar-year league and the dilution of the sudden death format in championship.
There are a number of other motions on the subject tabled for Saturday’s debate and if Croke Park remain buoyant about the prospects of the Central Council package attaining the 60 per cent required, it’s equally possible to detect a sense that there’s nothing wrong with the hurling championship so why try to fix it?
It’s as if the dust has settled on the anxieties that the hurling championship was going to be undermined by all the additional football.
Kilkenny have taken a view that it would be better to wait and see how the football group fixtures work out before imposing them on hurling but given that the proposal is in the context of a three-year trial for both codes it would make more sense to evaluate them over the same period of time.
In a way the Central Council blueprint is counter-intuitive. Hurling has always had a shortage of competitive counties compared to football and the demand might been for additional fixtures between the best teams rather than all of those involved from the start.
Cork and Dublin have filed motions to address that in different ways but with both looking to create extra matches between the top eight counties. The problem with this approach is that it takes months of activity to get rid of two counties and doesn’t build in any rewards for teams winning their provincial title.
That latter concern though created the ambivalent situation where by advancing Munster and Leinster champions to the All-Ireland semi-finals, the championship was creating too much of an advantage for experienced, seasoned teams winning their province and disadvantage for newcomers, who weren't practised in dealing with the five weeks of inactivity.
With very few exceptions, the more experienced team wins semi-finals, especially in hurling.
It’s not true however to say Saturday’s deliberations are merely an exercise in letting hurling counties vent their views on the championship. Hurling is effectively getting a shot to nothing on championship reforms.
The GAA is about to embark on a period of experimentation and both games should be engaged in order to see how the championships get on under different formats.
If they’re a disaster they can be changed but behind those considerations, Croke Park are also anxious to be able to launch an integrated calendar that makes additional provision for club fixtures.
smoran@irishtimes.com
