IT WAS NOT that long ago when the job of a national hurling committee chairperson was not so much to conduct a review rather than just rejoice at the heavenly state the game was in.
Back in 2014, Liam Sheedy, at the behest of the late Liam O’Neill, chaired the Hurling 2020 committee and when the report was published, apart from the existential developmental issues, the game’s health was professed to be in as rude health as ever.
As its sibling wore its black hair-shirt, or at least its black card around its neck, as acknowledgment of the deep-rooted cynicism at its core, the biggest takeaway from the report was hurling’s desire to move away from the caution culture.
Not only was any discussion on the introduction of a black card slapped away with the kind of brute force inflicted on a sliotar by a Brendan Cummins puck on the Cooley Mountains, but the committee’s headline proposal was that any player shown a second yellow card should have his shame diluted by being replaced from the bench. It stopped short of calling every referee’s in-match whistle a stain on the game, but not by a distance.
John Meyler. Tommy Dickson / INPHO
Tommy Dickson / INPHO / INPHO
Thoughts, then, for John Meyler, who finds himself where no hurling review chairperson has found himself before, charged with introducing a wardrobe of rules changes just so it gets to walk down the championship cat-walk in its Sunday best, arm in arm with a sibling now suited and booted to charm.
Changes
Those proposed changes will be trialled in college games later in the year and while we are hopelessly in the dark as to what they might be, it will be a shock if not included is a proposal to demand all puck-outs have to travel a certain distance, rather than simply passing the parcel.
Warning, this may even require a football-like arc being painted on a sacred patch of unblemished grass near you.
Hurling needs this, not so much the rule changes but the conversation as to how the fundamentals of a great game can find some protection from laptop strategists.
There is a secondary issue which, again, has been prompted more by casting an envious eye over the neighbour’s fence than by a core need, which is an expanded championship format to ensure hurling is not lost in football’s shadow.
This, to avoid confusion, is outside Meyler’s remit, but that is not to say that this is a conversation that also needs to take place, but for the right reason.
Earlier this summer, Cork County Board chairman Pat Horgan, off his own back, proposed a format change which would see the provincial championships shed its capacity to eliminate teams from Liam MacCarthy.
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Instead, where teams finished in the provincials would determine their pathway in the Liam MacCarthy play-offs which would include all 12 teams.
Horgan deserves credit for getting that conversation rolling, arguing that his proposal would see all teams have a bigger summer window than currently applies.
However, the problem with leaving stock in the summer window is that when it does not sell, it tends to fade and spoil.
True, the football championship follows the same principle of an All-Ireland series which is effectively disengaged from the provincials, but with the latter knock-out and the play-offs offering only one second chance, it has the numbers and depth to go down that road.
Football also has a national league in which competitive integrity was locked in long before – one which has become increasingly tenuous – a link was established between league finishing positions and championship status.
Schedule
In the rush for hurling to find more games to fill the schedule, there has to be a realisation it is coming from a very different place.
The round-robin provincial championships – which owe their introduction to football’s brief flirtation with the Super 8s – have been in place since 2018 and have been an unqualified success.
Tampering with that by completely removing the element of jeopardy is likely to invite the exact same reaction as to why football went cold on its subsequent “Champions League” format after just three seasons.
On top of that, if hurling were to go down the road of diminishing the importance of its summer league, where does that leave its spring league?
Cork hurling fans. Morgan Treacy / INPHO
Morgan Treacy / INPHO / INPHO
As it is, the hurling league, outside of Cork’s manic following, hardly sets the pulse racing.
One of the arguments underpinning the desire to expand the championship has, perversely, been Waterford’s repeated failure to qualify – they have failed to do so in all seven attempts – out of the Munster round-robin.
The argument that it would be good for Waterford, and teams like them, to play deeper into the summer is deeply flawed. There is a reason why hurling is played as a competitive sport. If results do not have consequences, you are not left looking at a championship but performance art.
That is not to say that some reform is not possible, but any expansion should serve a purpose more than just playing for playing’s sake. It has to be based on merit.
One sensible tweak would be to borrow from football by linking hurling’s struggling national league to the championship.
Simply put, the two teams who ranked highest in the league but failed to make the six-team cut from the provincial championships would receive a wild card to play in the All-Ireland quarter-finals, facing off against the provincial champions.
Had that been in play this year (and avoiding provincial repeats), defending All-Ireland champions Tipperary would have headed to Galway and Kilkenny to Limerick for do or die All-Ireland quarter-finals.
Kilkenny hurlers after their championship exit against Dublin. Bryan Keane / INPHO
Bryan Keane / INPHO / INPHO
In the process, it would give the hurling championship the kind of festival feel which football gets such a bounce out of when it reaches its last eight.
And had that system been in place since the introduction of the round robins in 2018, Waterford would have received a wild card entry to the quarter-finals in four out of seven seasons.
That included 2022 when they actually won the league, but disappeared off the championship play-off cliff edge after Munster, while instead Kerry and Antrim (Joe McDonagh Cup finalists) were deemed worthy of a play-off place, where they were beaten by an aggregate of 32 points.
On top of that, it would go some way to addressing criticisms of a lop-sided provincial championship, but that tends to be overstated.
Had the league wild card system been in place since 2018, the split between Munster and Leinster would have been down the middle for six out of seven seasons (there were no round robins in 2020/21), while Offaly would have been playing in their third All-Ireland quarter-final in nine years this summer.
The Offaly hurling team before their All-Ireland quarter-final against Cork. Tom O'Hanlon / INPHO
Tom O'Hanlon / INPHO / INPHO
That might have helped their development, it most certainly would have helped provide the National League with relevance, and it would have provided the hurling championship with the anchor weekend it is so badly missing.
For now, the game is the thing that needs to be fixed.
When it does, it could do worse than tweaking its championship format to give it the window it needs, rather than the one it might think it wants.
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Why hurling needs to follow football by linking league to championship
IT WAS NOT that long ago when the job of a national hurling committee chairperson was not so much to conduct a review rather than just rejoice at the heavenly state the game was in.
Back in 2014, Liam Sheedy, at the behest of the late Liam O’Neill, chaired the Hurling 2020 committee and when the report was published, apart from the existential developmental issues, the game’s health was professed to be in as rude health as ever.
As its sibling wore its black hair-shirt, or at least its black card around its neck, as acknowledgment of the deep-rooted cynicism at its core, the biggest takeaway from the report was hurling’s desire to move away from the caution culture.
Not only was any discussion on the introduction of a black card slapped away with the kind of brute force inflicted on a sliotar by a Brendan Cummins puck on the Cooley Mountains, but the committee’s headline proposal was that any player shown a second yellow card should have his shame diluted by being replaced from the bench. It stopped short of calling every referee’s in-match whistle a stain on the game, but not by a distance.
Thoughts, then, for John Meyler, who finds himself where no hurling review chairperson has found himself before, charged with introducing a wardrobe of rules changes just so it gets to walk down the championship cat-walk in its Sunday best, arm in arm with a sibling now suited and booted to charm.
Changes
Those proposed changes will be trialled in college games later in the year and while we are hopelessly in the dark as to what they might be, it will be a shock if not included is a proposal to demand all puck-outs have to travel a certain distance, rather than simply passing the parcel.
Warning, this may even require a football-like arc being painted on a sacred patch of unblemished grass near you.
Hurling needs this, not so much the rule changes but the conversation as to how the fundamentals of a great game can find some protection from laptop strategists.
There is a secondary issue which, again, has been prompted more by casting an envious eye over the neighbour’s fence than by a core need, which is an expanded championship format to ensure hurling is not lost in football’s shadow.
This, to avoid confusion, is outside Meyler’s remit, but that is not to say that this is a conversation that also needs to take place, but for the right reason.
Earlier this summer, Cork County Board chairman Pat Horgan, off his own back, proposed a format change which would see the provincial championships shed its capacity to eliminate teams from Liam MacCarthy.
Instead, where teams finished in the provincials would determine their pathway in the Liam MacCarthy play-offs which would include all 12 teams.
Horgan deserves credit for getting that conversation rolling, arguing that his proposal would see all teams have a bigger summer window than currently applies.
However, the problem with leaving stock in the summer window is that when it does not sell, it tends to fade and spoil.
True, the football championship follows the same principle of an All-Ireland series which is effectively disengaged from the provincials, but with the latter knock-out and the play-offs offering only one second chance, it has the numbers and depth to go down that road.
Football also has a national league in which competitive integrity was locked in long before – one which has become increasingly tenuous – a link was established between league finishing positions and championship status.
Schedule
In the rush for hurling to find more games to fill the schedule, there has to be a realisation it is coming from a very different place.
The round-robin provincial championships – which owe their introduction to football’s brief flirtation with the Super 8s – have been in place since 2018 and have been an unqualified success.
Tampering with that by completely removing the element of jeopardy is likely to invite the exact same reaction as to why football went cold on its subsequent “Champions League” format after just three seasons.
On top of that, if hurling were to go down the road of diminishing the importance of its summer league, where does that leave its spring league?
As it is, the hurling league, outside of Cork’s manic following, hardly sets the pulse racing.
One of the arguments underpinning the desire to expand the championship has, perversely, been Waterford’s repeated failure to qualify – they have failed to do so in all seven attempts – out of the Munster round-robin.
The argument that it would be good for Waterford, and teams like them, to play deeper into the summer is deeply flawed. There is a reason why hurling is played as a competitive sport. If results do not have consequences, you are not left looking at a championship but performance art.
That is not to say that some reform is not possible, but any expansion should serve a purpose more than just playing for playing’s sake. It has to be based on merit.
One sensible tweak would be to borrow from football by linking hurling’s struggling national league to the championship.
Simply put, the two teams who ranked highest in the league but failed to make the six-team cut from the provincial championships would receive a wild card to play in the All-Ireland quarter-finals, facing off against the provincial champions.
Had that been in play this year (and avoiding provincial repeats), defending All-Ireland champions Tipperary would have headed to Galway and Kilkenny to Limerick for do or die All-Ireland quarter-finals.
In the process, it would give the hurling championship the kind of festival feel which football gets such a bounce out of when it reaches its last eight.
And had that system been in place since the introduction of the round robins in 2018, Waterford would have received a wild card entry to the quarter-finals in four out of seven seasons.
That included 2022 when they actually won the league, but disappeared off the championship play-off cliff edge after Munster, while instead Kerry and Antrim (Joe McDonagh Cup finalists) were deemed worthy of a play-off place, where they were beaten by an aggregate of 32 points.
On top of that, it would go some way to addressing criticisms of a lop-sided provincial championship, but that tends to be overstated.
Had the league wild card system been in place since 2018, the split between Munster and Leinster would have been down the middle for six out of seven seasons (there were no round robins in 2020/21), while Offaly would have been playing in their third All-Ireland quarter-final in nine years this summer.
That might have helped their development, it most certainly would have helped provide the National League with relevance, and it would have provided the hurling championship with the anchor weekend it is so badly missing.
For now, the game is the thing that needs to be fixed.
When it does, it could do worse than tweaking its championship format to give it the window it needs, rather than the one it might think it wants.
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