No way to avoid League’s reduced quality
Diluted competition is irrefutable reality
“Lack of relegation is having an impact”
WHAT American presidential candidate Al Gore lost in a Florida recount, he made up for via the medium of film.
When George W Bush received the supreme court backing to sneak in as president of the United States of America, nobody expected the man who came second to leave a very different legacy. Arguably, a more lasting one.
‘I am Al Gore… I used to be the next President of the United States.’ This is one of the opening lines from Bill Clinton’s former running mate in the landmark documentary ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, a call to arms on climate change that became an unlikely global hit and earned the movie an Oscar and Gore — and a climate change panel — the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.
The title of the movie has become a frame of reference for wilful delusion in the face of a body of empirical evidence.
Well, here’s ‘an inconvenient truth’: after the annus mirabilis of 2018 when hurling reached unprecedented heights, 2019 has been a complete let-down so far. A combination of events has undermined this year’s Allianz Hurling League to the extent that last summer is beginning to seem like a dim and distant memory.
All that’s missing is Al Gore to appear behind a camera on TG4 or Eir Sport or Allianz League Sunday with the series of flip charts to prove that our eyes aren’t deceiving us.
Has Division 1A even produced one quality game yet from the nine played in the opening three rounds? Not really.
Take round one. Tipperary hosted Clare on the opening Saturday night when the feelgood factor from last year was still lingering in the air. It’s hard to find a manager or a senior player who prefers to hurl under floodlights though, particularly on a freezing January night when the rain swirled around Semple Stadium.
It’s only this past two seasons since the April ‘club only’ window was introduced that the decision to push the Hurling League back to an earlier January start was taken, reducing the chances of conditions being conducive to what is, essentially, a game made for high summer.
Just when Tipperary-Clare was getting interesting, the new refereeing directive aimed at a crackdown on head-high tackles saw Tony Kelly harshly red-carded. At a point when the former Hurler of the Year was conducting the Clare comeback, Tipperary regrouped, Seamus Callanan rattled in a couple of goals, and all the energy and momentum fizzled out of the contest.
The following day, Cork caved tamely to Kilkenny at Nowlan Park — not for the first time — while Limerick dogged their way to victory in a fractious affair down in Wexford Park, a free-ridden, stopstart affair that was characterised by rucks, chops and sideline cuts, the crowd seeing very little free-flowing hurling. Round two? A freezing fog at the Gaelic Grounds on another miserable evening under lights halved what was meant to be a huge homecoming attendance for the All-Ireland champions as they hosted Tipperary. Instead, 8,559 spectators showed up to witness John Kiely’s men flex their muscles and ruthlessly put down any Premier County notions. Clare beat Kilkenny the following day in a strangely subdued affair while Wexford’s win in Páirc Uí Chaoimh had an element of farce about it on a pitch that wasn’t fit to graze cattle never mind host a topflight game. And so on to last weekend’s round three. A ninepoint victory over Kilkenny at Nowlan Park represented a serious statement of intent
by Limerick but, again, the atmosphere was almost funereal at the finish. It’s easy to think that the lack of relegation from Division 1A is having an impact. It was truly bizarre to witness the match finish out in near silence with Kilkenny unable to muster the kind of comeback they have built their reputation on during the Brian Cody era. But then, seeing as the top 12 teams between Division 1A and 1B are going to be jumbled up in 2020, what does it matter?
Cork and Clare turned into a free-fest settled by Patrick Horgan’s sublime ball-striking while a one-sided match in Wexford Park turned on another wrongful sending off, this time Noel McGrath picking up a second yellow for a challenge that might barely earn a free come summer.
There is a certain perversity in changing a competition that was deemed ‘too competitive’ by certain strong counties, particularly those in Munster who felt that it now bore too much resemblance to the new round-robin provincial Championship structure, with little room for experimentation or error.
Well, between the dilution of quality which will become official next year, and the January start, it’s hard to see how this is progress. That’s before the unnecessary edict to officials about head-high challenges and a clampdown on the hand-pass. It also ignored the timing that means a host of top players are compromised by an overlap with Fitzgibbon Cup competition or All-Ireland club competition.
The status of the League is further reduced by the enforced absence of such stars as Mark Coleman, TJ Reid and David Burke. Surely, there was a better way? Go back to 2012, the first year of the streamlined top flight, when the old eight-team format was changed to a Division 1A of six teams and a Division 1B of six teams. The first round took place on the last weekend in February. When Kilkenny hosted Dublin in round three after St Patrick’s Day, it produced an incredible 11-goal thriller in glorious sunshine that was akin to the quality of high summer.
Those high-scoring helter-skelter games were a feature of the competition until the key timing and structural changes of the past two seasons.
The GAA finally discovered a formula for a brilliant summer in the form of a round-robin in Leinster and Munster; the only pity is that the Allianz Hurling League has been compromised as a consequence.
There is no denying that so much of the buzz of 2019 has already been frittered away. With two rounds to go, it remains to be seen if the competition can generate some badly-needed fireworks.