The struggle for survival in Junior hurling
Thoughts on the future of the game
THE recent decision by the Leinster Council to rule Barndarrig’s appeal against the awarding of a walkover out of order after they took a stand against fielding against Bray Emmets in the Junior B hurling championship on the basis that Bray would be in a position to play their regraded players has left the Barndarrig hurlers out of the championship and finished with hurling for 2017.
The failure of the Barndarrig case is one of several this year in Wicklow GAA. In the football world, Kilmacanogue saw their appeal against an awarding of a walkover after they opted to not field against Rathnew for a similar reason ruled out of order and Kilcoole’s request to have their Intermediate hurling clash with St Pat’s postponed was also denied.
The incidents, in terms of hurling, shine a spotlight into a dark corner of Wicklow hurling where single unit clubs find themselves going up against teams from Senior clubs which are populated with regraded players who oftentimes can be lining out for their Senior team in the league section of the Senior championship.
The current ruling is that a hurling club can regrade five players and those players will not lose their Junior status until after the quarter-final of the Senior or Intermediate championship is played.
The landscape of single team Junior hurling clubs in Wicklow has become a barren place in recent years. At present there are two such clubs, Barndarrig and Kilmac-Enniskerry, where several years ago it was populated by clubs such as Shillelagh, Donard, Dunlavin, Fergal Ógs, Newcastle and Avoca.
Last week we sat down with Brian Walsh from the Barndarrig club and Christy Fox from the Kilmac-Enniskerry club to discuss their views on the current state of affairs in Junior hurling in Wicklow and their thoughts on the future.
We started by asking Brian Walsh about the journey from last season, where the Barndarrig men won the Junior C title after defeating Shillelagh in Aughrim, to this year where they find themselves dumped out of the Junior B championship following the ruling by Leinster Council.
BW – If we wind the clock back 12 months, we’ve been trying to keep hurling alive. At the start of last year, we gave a couple of walkovers, couldn’t get teams out, and we said, “You know what, if we don’t, we’re dead”. And it’s not on my watch, that’s my mantra. And we fielded teams and we won a few games and we were getting scutchings and then we’d win a game.
We got more scutchings than we won. We ended up in the Junior ‘C’ along with Fergals (Fergal Ógs), Kilmac and Shillelagh. T’was grand, because it was the four Junior teams that ended up playing each other so there was no issue for the County Board. “Work away lads, play it in the dark and the rain, and you’ll disappear in time”.
And for me, the success of last year was not the winning of the championship, it was that we kept hurling alive, and I told about four members of the County Board that as we left Aughrim that day.
Then you come to this year and we said, “Right, we’ll give it a rattle”. And we’re totally blighted with injuries, and we pretty much played every game and there was a walkover given to Bray which we could dispute but we didn’t bother. We bet Carnew, surprisingly. We bet Kilmac and we got two walkovers from Junior ‘A’ teams, one who wouldn’t travel to Kiltegan because it didn’t matter to them and the other, they couldn’t get a team because of exams, so we ended up in the ‘B’ championship.
CF – That presented a problem for the CCC. Because normally the Junior clubs finish at the bottom and Barndarrig finished ahead of St Pat’s. We actually went to a CCC meeting, ourselves and Barndarrig, August 12, and there was an amazing request put to Barndarrig: “Would ye come back to the ‘C’ championship and let Pat’s go to the ‘B’ championship”. And that would have solved everything.
BW – And, “I have agreed this with Pat’s”, was the comment that was passed by the County Board member.
That suggestion makes the problem go away, we play one another, goodbye, and lads, you know what ye should do, put in a motion in next year and it’ll all be right next year. In other words, go away for six months and we’ll deal with that in six months’ time.
What was your reaction to that request?
BW – No. The way the league has played out it puts us in ‘B’ and so as such we are in ‘B’. And the one question we both posed on the day was: “Why are you playing off the Junior before the Intermediate and Senior?” And that question has been asked a thousand times and never been answered to date.
CF – Fundamentally, that gets to the heart of it. As far as I’m concerned, regrading was put in for two purposes. One: to allow a Senor player who was retiring to play Junior the following year, and two: to allow for a guy who is on the fringes of the Senior panel to get five or 10 minutes so that he would get some hurling. But we have got to a situation now where we have players playing full Senior championship matches and Junior championship matches and, in actual fact, I seen a statistic on social media where there was a guy who was in the top five scorers in the Senior, Intermediate and Junior championships in 2017. So, one guy is in the top five scorers in all the championships.
What always happened was, the Junior hurling proceeded with the regrades. We didn’t have a big issue with that. And then it got to the knock-out stages.
The first round of the Senior championship was played and those lads no longer qualified for Intermediate or Junior championships.
Then the Intermediate was played and the Junior championship was played. And it levelled the playing pitch for the likes of ourselves. They have gone away from that. First of all, they said that a Senior player doesn’t lose his status until the quarter-final. They can play six of seven rounds of the Senior championship and still play in the Junior championship, which we feel is bonkers!
Not only that, but they are playing the full Junior championship to its completion before the quarter-final of the Senior championship. In other words, Senior players play the full duration of the Junior championship.
So, it’s actually a scheduling issue. First of all, once you play in the first round of the Senior championship, you should not be eligible to play in lower grades. Our appeal was based on that. The CCC said they went to Leinster Council and got permission to do this, but they wouldn’t produce the minutes of the meeting where it was voted on.
BW – Last Monday, it was announced by one of the CCC members who were in attendance, that it was done at County Convention. We’ve also heard that it was done at the first hurling meeting, and we’ve also heard that it was done at the first County Board meeting.
CF – We had a member at all those meetings who said that, categorically, there was no vote held on that.
BW – There’s a mail gone into them today requesting the minutes of all those meetings. We’ve requested how it was passed and it came back that it was passed at a meeting but there’s nothing in the minutes to show who proposed, who seconded.
CF – We’ve also requested the email that was sent to Leinster Council and the contents of that and what was the request exactly.
BW – Many of the issues have not been answered. Why are the championships being played off early? How was the voting done?
CF – It was also an issue where some of the teams in the Junior competitions gave multiple walkovers and remained in the competition. Now, we were always brought up to believe that if you gave two walkovers you were out.
BW – I was made wise on Monday that it doesn’t matter in the league, because the league is different than the championship, doesn’t matter, lads.
CF – If you get on to the bigger issue of the development in hurling. Believe it or not, I started adult hurling in 1991, and I’ve played every year since, and I’ve seen 10 or 12 Junior hurling clubs go by the wayside.
At the start of this year it looked like we wouldn’t be able to field (a Junior hurling team) so we didn’t enter.
We got no phone call from anybody. Since 1991 I have never seen a hurling development officer in Kilmac-Enniskerry. No phone call. Nothing.
That was disappointing because seven or eight years ago we started juvenile hurling in Kilmac. We got up to under-13 but we feel that we are wasting our time and that they’d be better off going back to play football.
Are they serious about developing the game? We have four national schools in our area. We are a well populated area. If you said what is the most positive thing that has happened in Wicklow hurling in the last 10 years, you would say the emergence of Bray, the emergence of Éire Óg Greystones.
We have the potential to do that, Barndarrig have the potential to emerge as a serious force. You’d wonder why?
BW – My sense of it is that they are blinded a little by limited success. Two years ago, the county team were going nowhere, then this year all of a sudden, they have a great year and sure the hurling must be going well.
When was the last time there was a Minor team? I know there’s work going on at development level and I applaud and admire it but you’re going to be working and pulling from a smaller pool of clubs and if you make that a smaller pool of clubs you’ll have a smaller pool of players and it won’t be long until you end up like Cavan and you’ll have three clubs and you won’t have teams.
CF – I see hurling as having gone regional in Wicklow. The Carnews, the Avondales, the Kiltegans, the Glenealys, they all have 20-plus permissions from other clubs. I’ve nothing against the Senior clubs. I’m actually more disappointed with the County Board and the CCC, the clubs are looking after their own interest and that’s fine. I don’t have an issue with that. But the CCC should take stock and we have to do what’s best for the game rather than what’s best for the individual club.
BW – What’s best for the game is not what’s going on in Wicklow at the moment.
Thoughts on how to improve the situation
BW – We wrote to the County Board at the start of the year in