We have got to reassess & make sure the League’s a competition worth winning
THAT Tik Tok video that surfaces every year around St Patrick’s Day got me thinking last week.
You know the one where the elderly gentleman is vox-popped by a reporter who asks if he’ll be partaking in the celebrations and watching a parade.
“I’ll stay in the back garden with my dog, it’s the greatest load of ponce and wonce,” he replies, before giving an assessment of the whole spectacle that was equally hilarious and withering.
I couldn’t help thinking that he could just as easily have been talking about the League as we know it, which is so meaningless it’s not funny.
From inside the team environment, the League is about finding new players, new ways of doing things and incrementally building towards the competition that really matters.
Granted, it’s the secondary competition and will never enjoy a higher status than that.
But surely there should be greater incentive to make it bigger and better than what it is.
Two examples stood out to me recently. Waterford are off to Portugal this week, so did they ever even want to be in the shake-up for a League title at this stage?
In fairness, I would say that they did on some level but the message that jetting off at this time of year sends to players and the mindset arising from it points to a take-it-or-leave-it attitude.
Elsewhere, the headline on
Anthony Daly’s Irish Examiner podcast this week was: ‘Will managers put players in the freezer for the semis?’.
Again, the fact that this is a reasonable line of debate tells you all you need to know about the status of the competition.
Still, we have two semi-finals up for decision whether we like it or not, one of which is a repeat of the last three national finals across League and Championship as Limerick and Kilkenny meet again.
I was at last year’s League final, which was also played at Supervalu Pairc Ui Chaoimh, and Limerick ran amok. I was sitting behind the Kilkenny bench and Derek Lyng was animated, which tells me that, in typical Kilkenny attitude, they really wanted to win it – but they were miles off.
The dynamic is different with these two as they are unlikely to meet again before July and so can tear into each other.
But it’s a different scenario on the other side of the draw.
Nobody will remember in years to come who wins this game between Tipperary and Clare, at least not before they will recall who beat who in the upcoming Championship. If I was managing either side and had a certain game plan and structure in place, there is no way that I’d showcase it in this game.
I’d pick half a team of regulars and the rest would effectively be on trial, sending them out to win of course, but not while showing my hand.
Because, coming back to what I said earlier, there is no great incentive beyond that, even with the incoming change in format for 2025.
A team holiday for the winners perhaps? Or maybe a spot in the All-ireland preliminary quarter-final?
There is any amount of small gestures which could really make the League a competition worth going after.