THE PHONEY WAR
Rejigging the League means relegation is off the cards this season
FOR a lot of managers and teams, the threat of relegation hangs like a guillotine over any National Hurling League campaign. Unless you’re from Limerick or Kilkenny, the first part of the season is spent battling to retain status and avoid the dreaded drop down a division.
That’s why there is a feeling already that the rejig of the National League format for 2025 is a godsend to many teams because it takes away that very threat of relegation.
Instead, if you’re one of the 12 teams in Division 1, the worst that can happen is that you’ll still be a Division 1 team, albeit a weaker group labelled 1B.
If you’re currently in Division 2A, the worst that can happen is that you’ll still be in that division next year. For the top two, there’s spots up for grabs in that same Division 1B and a chance to mix with a few more bigger names.
No wonder then Down manager Ronan Sheehan says: ‘I think it’s a massive advantage this year with no relegation.’
He is already buzzing about the Division 2A campaign ahead. ‘The reason I say I’m a fan of the new restructure is, if you think about the team that goes up from Division 2 this year, say Laois for example, they have a fighting chance of staying up in Division 1B.
‘Whereas realistically every other year the team that went up were fighting for their life.
‘It has always been very difficult for the team that comes up from Division 2B to stay up. We’ve been lucky that we’ve been able to do it in the League and in the McDonagh Cup the last couple of years but it’s always been a battle to do that.
‘Now with that bit of headspace, by the second or third game in you’ll know whether you have a chance of qualifying for the League final. Or maybe that League final is a wee bit out of reach and you will start to focus on preparations for the McDonagh Cup.
‘You still know that, regardless of where you end up, you’re going to still have good quality teams in the division next year, along with whoever comes up from the division below. So you’re going to have quality competition.’
And it’s certainly a challenging start for Down who have to travel to play promotion favourites Laois on Sunday.
Sheehan isn’t overegging it when he says: ‘Laois are the overwhelming favourites – we go there for our first match on Sunday. But outside of Laois, you could maybe toss a coin.
‘You could say that every single one of the other teams, to different degrees, would say that they could make a League semi-final. And then they are just 70 minutes away from a League final and potentially going up to Division 1.’
It can be frustrating though hurling away off-Broadway. The accompanying column outlines how there was no representative outside of last year’s Division 1 League finalists involved in this week’s National Hurling League lunch.
‘No… nothing,’ confirms Sheehan who would love to see more done to promote the level of competition, along with the second tier All-Ireland championship, the Joe McDonagh Cup.
‘Why can’t we have a highlights programme for the McDonagh Cup? It’s an excellent competition. Look at the closeness of it every year, the quality, the level of competition — it’s one of the best competitions in the GAA. Yet zero coverage, bar what they get from a few journalists who fight the good fight on behalf of hurling.
‘Walk into a primary school in Newry.
‘Our Oisín is brought up in a house where hurling is a religion. He’s 11 years of age. He could name you as many soccer players as he could hurling players. And he’s an exception.
‘Even in a house where hurling is number one he is more likely to recognise Kyogo from Celtic than he is Diarmaid Byrnes with his helmet off. That’s a kid that’s watching hurling every week. So what’s it like in a house where hurling isn’t number one?
‘We’re very, very poor at promoting our games. We’re miles behind where our competitors are.’
He looks at urban demographics and the numbers playing Gaelic games in Kildare and Meath and sees those two counties as having great ‘potential for growth’, which the lack of relegation will only help develop.
‘I’m of the belief that the top six or eight in hurling isn’t going to change anytime soon. Because if we couldn’t do it with Dublin with all of the money that we’ve put in, we’re not going to do with some of the others. So we have to take a long-term strategy.’
“Every side will feel they can make it to a semi-final”