Davy calls for break in new Leinster format
Concerns about ‘rushed’ championship
WHILE Wexford manager Davy Fitzgerald is in favour of the new provincial hurling championship structures, he firmly believes that it could be improved with a further one-week break in the round robin series.
Five-team round robin formats will be in operation in both Leinster and Munster in 2018, with three counties to advance from both provinces into the All-Ireland series.
Fitzgerald is concerned about the team playing on four consecutive weekends, Wexford being one of those, during the initial phase, and feels introducing an extra bye week would ease the burden on his players.
‘The format on the championship, I like it, I really do,’ he says. ‘You take Munster, and you take Clare, the last time I think we’d a Munster championship game there would have been 1993, that’s a long time. I love that, the fact that the atmosphere around the town will be unreal. It will help the town, Then you look at the kids.
‘It’s the same in Wexford, Last year when we played Kilkenny in Wexford it was incredible.
‘The only thing I would tweak in it a small bit is... I think the running it in five weeks is just a small bit (rushed). If it was six weeks where you get one more break in it, I think, it would be great. That’s the only thing.
‘We’ve a three-week gap between the last match of the round robin and the final. I would have loved for them to push it out for one more week. We’ve a four week run, we’ve Dublin, then we’ve Offaly, a massive match against Galway, and then the following week you’re coming out and playing Kilkenny, who have the week before it off. All I’m saying is make it six weeks, which isn’t a big ordeal.
‘We’ve a savage Leinster championship next year. I love the fact we’re getting to play four big games. The only problem is you could be out of the championship in the first or second week of June, you could be gone completely.
But you can’t have it every way. I understand that you have to take care of the club players too. I actually think they’ve made a good fist of it and I don’t think they’ve got the credit for it.’