WE’RE STILL NOT at the stage where we can look at the calendar from our late June perspective and think: two hurling weekends left, seems right.
Everything about it feels askew. It’s like Halloween in September, Christmas six weeks later and the Leaving Cert beginning on St Patrick’s weekend.
I say that as a supporter of the split season. When the new format was announced and then put into operation last year people quickly took sides. Were you for players? For clubs? Were you for the certainty this brings to the vast swathe of the GAA population who were previously saw their best-laid plans of eight days in the sun upended by a speedily convened club championship group stage?
Or were you an elitist? Interested in the county scene to the exclusion of all else? Or, worse, an armchair fan who just wanted something watchable on the TV before the Premier League got up to speed again!
It all got a bit Saipan there for a while, in how we set out our positions while denigrating the views of others.
Little of the stark characterisations of either side were true, but a certain amount of tit-for-tat in the heat of debate is understandable.
With a bit of time passed now, I think everyone is a little less entrenched. We can see some merit in the others’ points now.
What’s important is that the system we have is allowed to evolve. Progress is usually made in increments, and while we’re on the right path, few would argue that we’re dialled into the perfect formula.
There are winners and losers to the current programme. The big winners are the county and club players, who now have a clear idea of how the year will play out.
County players, in particular, have the bonus of mid-year trips to America if they are out of the championship. A quick scan of some of the line-ups in San Francisco and Boston tells a story. More power to these lads, it’s great to see young people get a chance to travel and enjoy their summers in this way.
The losers, as I see it, are the spectators and media. Neither should be readily dismissed.
Every county has supporters who have built their weekends around going to games through the summer and, if they are lucky, into August and maybe September. Then there is a huge group of neutral fans who travel around, taking in the most appealing game of the day.
Some fans mainly watch on TV, and take a great deal of enjoyment from that. None of the above should be spoken down to. You’d often hear questions about what, if any, role they are playing in their local club given that they prefer county GAA but, honestly, they deserve better than this. A lot are probably involved locally, while many aren’t.
Either way, they keep the turnstiles clicking, invest emotionally and bring colour to the stands. Even by viewing on TV they are creating a market which is worth a lot to the Association.
Then there is the media which benefits from having county GAA on the go for nine to ten months of the year rather than seven. I know there’s plenty more they can broadcast or write about in our absence, but I’d wager they’d sell more newspapers and subscriptions on the first Sunday of September when there’s an All-Ireland hurling final on, rather than say a round of club quarter-finals, and the usual programme of Premier League soccer.
Overall, the media does vital work telling hurling and footballs’ story. They should be considered in all conversations about championship structures.
All that said, we’re not going back, nor should we. But how about giving more breathing space to the games that matter?
We should be maximising the seven months we have. To this end: no more pre-season competitions, just straight into the leagues in January.
League semi-finals and finals could be done away with too – a league which is won by the greatest number of points, and then scoring difference, has more currency for me.
These changes would provide extra space for the bigger games. You wouldn’t end up with two All-Ireland semi-finals on the same weekend.
And there has to be scope to push the final back a couple of weeks. 23 July is too early. If it was back two weeks it wouldn’t cause a huge disruption to club championships up and down the land. A simple aim that they all start on the first weekend of August unless they are one of the two counties in the All-Ireland final doesn’t seem unreasonable.
I say this as someone whose involvement nowadays is all club and no county.
Back between the sticks
In a piece of news that won’t lead any bulletins nor test the cooling fan on Twitter’s server, I’ll be back hurling with South Liberties for the Limerick SHC in August.
Regulars to The 42 might remember an article on the back of a podcast we did late last year where I said I was stepping away from playing altogether. Ronan Curran was one of the people who read it. “Have you not done one of these stories before?” He asked me. “How many times does a fella retire these days?”
I’ll just slip away quietly next time! Save Ronan and a few others the effort of reading a third such sign-off!
Why am I going back, just ahead of my 39th birthday? The usual combination that drives older players: a sense of duty allied to an element of madness and a love of the cause.
It’s mad because I’m finally able to go on holidays with my family and I actually have a bit of spare time in the summer. That’s gone now before it began.
And the hurling – this doesn’t sound great, but I won’t enjoy it. I’m ultra-competitive and any defeats or poor performances will stay with me longer than they should. A sense of satisfaction is the best I can hope for.
Then there’s the sense of duty which, I suppose, bleeds into love. South Liberties have been badly hit with injuries. They’re up against it and I wouldn’t have felt right if they’d struggled and I didn’t do my best to help.
I’m a proud Corkman but my ties with South Liberties precede my own entry into this world.
My grandfather Paddy Shanahan kept goal for Liberties and my cousin Albert Shanahan also did so. Then there is the Nash side.
Five of my uncles played on the team when I was growing up. There was Noel at corner-forward, Declan playing centre-back with Joseph the full-forward. Mícheál was centre-forward and Gerard was corner-back.
If you picked a fight with one you got five for your money. I remember Gerard getting a belt once and a battalion of Nashs advancing from various directions.
These were the games where I’d stand behind the goal with my hurley and a dream. This was what I wanted to be a part of. My dad Tom played but by the time I was on the line he was a guard stationed in Kanturk and was no longer on the team.
To be able to wear the South Liberties No 1 jersey and make some kind of contribution to the club in the name of the Nashs and the Shanahans . . . well, it means something to me.
One more year! Or, as we say in the split season, three more months.