GETTING ON FOR 25 years ago, new to the business, I set off to do some research into how seasoned reporters put together match reports.

The only previous advice I’d had was from a sport editor as he sent me on my way to some field or other. “Don’t f*** it up.” 

I have tried to do him proud since, but there have been moments when he and others might have been disappointed in me. Such as perhaps now, with my topic choice: championship structures – the great eyeball repellent. But at least I still asterisk s*** and f*** – print training living on in the algorithm age.  

Anyway, back then, I picked up a Monday paper. Four write-ups filled one broadsheet page. The intro to all of them was “It’s only February, but . . . ” 

And on it went from there. Whatever the journalist saw, the greatest or the worst game, performances of renown or ignominy, would be forgotten and dismissed quickly as irrelevant. Once we’re all in agreement on that, then something could be written; some kind of interpretation put on events. 

Nothing in the years since has changed. We have come out of the month of ‘only February but’ . . . now this is a real problem. 

We could all live with it more than 20 years ago when assessing inter-county seasons which meandered from January into October if there was a football final replay. Now it’s different. 

There is a seven-month inter-county window, which some believe is too short. A motion to have it extended to August was withdrawn at Congress, but there are many who still feel it is too condensed. 

Whether or not it is or not is moot, to me at least, compared to the clear fact that the first three and a bit months are taken up with unimportant games.

January: warm-up competitions. February, March and the first part or April are another warm up competition, and then the serious part – the part people will remember in years to come – starts nearly halfway through the inter-county window. 

You don’t need to be the alien from outer space who often appears as a baffled onlooker in structure debates to know this is irrational. We all know it is mad.  

Beware of people offering simple solutions to complex problems and all that, but sometimes the answers really are straightforward. 

Here is what needs to happen. Bestow the league with the integrity it warrants. Everybody plays each other home and away. The winner wins, the relegated teams go down and promoted ones go up. No need for league finals or any undermining frills and gimmicks. In the new era of the league is the league, the league is a league.  

Play the championship concurrently with the league, but obviously starting a bit later. Straight knockout, provincial championships and then onwards, and bring back replays while we’re at it. The greatest games of all are replays. 

So in a Liam MacCarthy hurling context that would be 12 games in the league, and up to five games in the championship with possible replays. If that’s not possible in a seven window then we have issues. You could even look at decreasing the number of divisions and therefore upping the number of games.  

Everyone wins from this. Players and supporters have more matches against opposition of a similar calibre. Counties get more home ties. And all games would be important, no more dead rubbers, no more rubbers that were never truly alive in the first place. 

Aidan O'Connor strikes a free for Limerick on Saturday. James Lawlor / INPHO James Lawlor / INPHO / INPHO

This year for example Cork and Limerick could meet each other up to six times: Munster hurling league, league, league final, Munster round-robin, Munster final and All-Ireland series. 

In these hypothetical games, one side could lose five and win the final one and have the year considered a big success, while for the other it would be looked back on as failure. I know this scenario is unlikely, but the fact it is possible at all is not good. 

There should be a lasting consequence for every game. Cork’s loss to Limerick on Saturday night ought to mean something when assessing who was the best team of 2026. But it won’t matter should Cork win the All Ireland, nor will it matter if Limerick and Cork progress to the league final and Limerick win. 

When all was totted up at the end of 2025, Cork probably took no lasting joy from the league final win over Tipperary, or the victory over them in Munster. What happened last coloured everything, and this is the way it’s always been.  

Though, as things stand, hurling and football at county level are still set up for an older Ireland. A more agriculture-based society where a great many people worked at least six days a week. Players and supporters couldn’t commit to lots of big games. It was all about being right on a few key days of the year. Hay was saved, and opponents bate – in that order. 

The saving of hay and all ancillary tasks are concentrated in far fewer hands now. Players train as semi-professionals for most of the year. Supporters are hungry for regular, meaningful contests. 

It should never be ‘only February but’ more ‘February, when the serious stuff starts’. 

Longer leagues with home and away games would quickly become the marker of true, sustained excellence. 

The championship could co-exist, with all of its current prestige and pre-backdoor jeopardy. Like the FA Cup before Man United decided to go on holiday rather than defend it. 

Of course, I’m not the first person to suggest such a plan, and it’s never been countenanced because, among other things, the parallels to Association Football sit uneasily. But that should be surmountable, those that worry about these things can regard it as reverse colonialism.

I’m prepared to admit I don’t have all the answers. Or even any of them. There is no doubt a brighter idea than mine out there. Yet surely there is a general acceptance that having the first half of the county season as a movie with the credits still rolling is no longer acceptable. 

There has to be a better way to use time, the most valuable and fleeting thing we all have.