Holding back in the League is cheating the paying public
AFRIEND of mine, convinced I have the inside track on the Allianz Hurling League, asked me last week who he should back to win it.
My response was abrupt: ‘If I put hard cash every year on the team who I think would win the League, my animals would be left to graze the long acre for sustenance.’
For those of you not of an agricultural background, the long acre is the roadside grassy verge where those who are short of land send their herd to feed.
And for those of you not of a hurling disposition, the Allianz Hurling League is the competition that no one dares say they are serious about lest they be open to ridicule.
When trying to predict who might win the League, it is better to ignore squad depth, player availability, pre-season form and the need to win — the fundamentals that would inform any educated opinion on what team might get over the winning line in a given competition.
But the Allianz Hurling League is not any competition.
For example, I could tell you right now that Galway are the most likely to win it. After the hype of Henry Shefflin’s appointment last year and the progress they showed, particularly in the Championship, there is a strong case that they have both the talent and the need to claim a national title.
But I can only tell you about the game of hurling, I can’t tell you what goes on inside the heads of hurling men. And for that, I don’t mind admitting I am kind of thankful because if I did, I fear it would depress me.
The already muddy waters of the League are now impenetrable as conventional wisdom has ordained that Waterford’s success in winning the spring title last year was the reason they did not perform in the Championship.
This is the kind of rationale that now qualifies as insight.
Seriously, the theory is out there that the worst thing a team can do is go out and win games early and often. Apparently, it is bad for your Championship health and Waterford will serve as proof of that.
There are times when I curse that I am a simple man who believes in simple things, such as winning is good and losing is bad.
Simple in the view that the reason Waterford bombed in last Championship was down to playing poorly rather than being impressive in the early part of the year.
My comfort is that I am not alone in my simple ways. Brian Cody won 10 Leagues titles as a manager, and on more than half of those occasions (six) he won the All-Ireland in the same year. It is just as well he got out when he did, because the game is far too complex now for a man of Cody’s rudimentary ways.
In truth, the League has been treated for far too long like something attached to the sole of your boot and for many it is just a longsummer’s winded warm-up to the Championship.
The GAA ensured that perverse view has now become the default position when it made the decision to bring in a summer league with the introduction of the round-robin format in the Munster and Leinster SHCs.
I find it sad to see how the League has been treated — it never ceases to amaze me how it has retained the commercial support of title sponsors Allianz — and I would love to see something done about it.
The only thing that can be done is to go for just the one league, where the spring would feed into the summer championship.
Instead of having two groups of six, you could have a league of 12 teams where everyone plays each other.
And you could still keep your provincial championships with the two highest-finishing Munster and Leinster teams playing off against each other in the provincial finals, with the other two highest placed teams also reaching the All-Ireland play-offs.
The winners of Munster and Leinster would advance to the All-Ireland semi-finals, the beaten provincial finalists would play the other two league qualifiers in the All-Ireland quarter-finals.
I would like to see that introduced even on a trial basis because it would ensure that teams would be primed to give their best right from the get-go.
OF course, that will not happen because the summer leagues — and this is particularly true of the Munster Championship — has delivered a huge financial windfall to the GAA.
But the irony is that the new format has made our game poorer, by effectively rendering a whole chunk of the hurling season irrelevant.
Ultimately, this boils down to honesty.
All around the country this weekend, hurling folk, desperate to see their county play again, will jump into their cars and drive long distances to see their heroes in action.
They will pay their money in the belief that what they will see will be the real thing.
Many will bring their children – youngsters who are told that the most important thing in sport is that you give all of yourself to whatever you play.
I really hope that the managers and coaches remember that, rather than holding out on those who pay to watch their teams.
In not giving everything to these games, they are not just cheating the public, they are cheating the game too.
As always, my hope for this League is that hurling will be the real winner.
My fear is that my hope will be in vain.