Ryan: Format change would freeze us out
WESTMEATH hurling manager Michael Ryan says the proposal to limit the Liam MacCarthy Cup to 10 teams from next year is ‘a disaster’.
As delegates converge on Croke Park this Saturday to vote on a raft of motions, including a Central Council-backed headline proposal that will see the All-Ireland SHC cut from 14 to 10, Ryan pleaded with delegates to be mindful of the damage that will be inflicted on hurling’s developing counties as a result.
‘If the proposal is passed in confining the Liam MacCarthy Cup to 10 teams that can’t be good for hurling in counties like Westmeath, Meath or Kerry. That simply would be a disaster if it happens,’ Ryan told Sportsmail yesterday.
Since Ryan was appointed manager in the autumn of 2014, the Westmeath hurlers have thrived under the current format, not only qualifying for the past three seasons from the Leinster preliminary group but also proving their competitiveness when facing some of the game’s heavyweights.
In the past three years, they have lost to Wexford, Limerick and, this year, Tipperary all by single-digit margins but if the motion is passed, next summer they will take part in a separate tier-two competition which will leave them frozen out of the All-Ireland series.
The winners of the tier-two competition will be promoted to the Liam MacCarthy Cup the following year, but an amendment backed by Laois, Offaly and Meath will seek to have the finalists of the competition re-enter the championship at a preliminary quarter-final round, where they would play the thirdplaced teams in the Munster and Leinster round-robin group.
‘First of all, I don’t think there is anything wrong with what is there; if it isn’t broken don’t try and fix it. But if there has to be change, then the proposal to allow the tier-two finalists back into the Liam MacCarthy would be the preferable option,’ said Ryan.
Either way, he is adamant that the pathway for developing counties to play in the All-Ireland Championship has to be protected, as he fears if that ‘carrot’ is taken away he will struggle to motivate his Westmeath players.
‘It would make it much more difficult,’ admitted the former Waterford boss.
‘There is a carrot there at present; our lads went down to Semple Stadium this year to take on the defending All-Ireland champions. That was a huge thing for our lads and I can tell you that they were really looking forward to that experience in the couple of weeks in the build-up.
‘When you go back training in December, there has to be an incentive there and if suddenly that incentive is gone, I would be very worried that the players would lose their appetite, their bite and their fight.’
The move to a radical change in the hurling championship structure was driven by the decision back in March to abolish the knock-out quarter-final round in football and replace it with a minileague competition, the Super 8s.
It led to fears that football, with an increased number of games at the business end of the championship, would dwarf hurling in terms of exposure, which prompted the Croke Park proposal to play both the Leinster and Munster championships on a round-robin basis.
Cork have proposed that the provincial championships remain as a knockout competition, but to compensate, the All-Ireland series would have its own ‘Super 8s’ to ensure more games in the latter stages of the championship.
But Ryan believes neither code will be served by going down what he labelled an ‘elitist’ road.
‘You will find that football will become like the [Premier League] in England. You will have six teams at best who are capable of winning something and the rest will be alsorans and that will only mean the game as a whole will decline.
‘I fear we are heading down the wrong path because this is promoting elitism.
‘How can counties like Westmeath, who already do not have the resources to compare with Dublin, ever hope to compete with them now that Dublin will be playing extra games and generating even more revenue — and there will be more revenue because sponsors will pay even more.
‘The gap will only get bigger, while the rest of us fall further and further behind,’ added Ryan, who has guided Gortnahoe Glengoole to a place in the Tipperary intermediate hurling final. But while all the focus is on changing something that is not broken, he argues that the GAA have still not made a credible attempt to fix the one thing that is.
‘We spend all our time now talking about changing competition formats, changing the football and hurling championships but there is nothing being done about the club scene.
‘It is absolutely crazy and this is happening despite people coming into the GAA and taking up positions while promising that something must be done about it and yet five years later we are having the same conversation.
‘You have two per cent of the players holding the other 98 per cent to ransom. Inter-county managers have too much say, too much of an influence and I say that as a county manager myself.’