CAN HURLING OPEN ITS CLOSED SHOP?
Galway’s League triumph offers the hope of a wide open Championship, but reality dictates that glory is unevenly distributed
WHEN Nickey Brennan issued his famous ‘hurling at a crossroads’ warning, nobody knew at the time that the game’s revolution years were just around the corner in the 1990s. That decade stood apart in the history of modern hurling, the first time since the 1920s that six different counties lifted the Liam MacCarthy Cup.
Galway’s 16-point humbling of All-Ireland champions Tipperary last Sunday in the Allianz League final has hurling supporters wondering once more whether the summer really is wide open once again.
Just as it looked back in 2013 when Davy Fitzgerald’s Clare swept to a startling and unexpected All-Ireland against the head.
If Michael Ryan’s team suddenly have feet of clay rather than the God-like status afforded them over much of the spring, no doubt the likes of Waterford, Clare, Cork and Galway can dare to dream big?
Except, it’s almost gone by unnoticed that hurling’s gene pool has shrunk by an unprecedented degree, at least in terms of the game’s ultimate prize. Never before has the All-Ireland seen such a carve-up between the game’s elite.
If we look at the spread of All-Ireland winners across each decade since the very first Championship in 1887, we find that during the first block of 10 years – from 1890-99 – at least four different counties were successful. Between 1910 and 1919, a record eight different counties won the All-Ireland. In the decade that followed, it was six – a number not matched until the 1990s’ revolution when Offaly, Clare and Wexford broke up the old order of Kilkenny, Cork and Tipperary.
The turn of the millennium though saw the empire strike back.
Brian Cody’s Kilkenny – arguably the greatest team of all time – had a lot to do with it. The decade of 2000-09 was the first that only three different counties were successful, an historical low. Not only that but every title belonged to the game’s traditional ‘Big Three’.
So far this past decade, the number of winners stands again at just three.
Galway’s League win has blown the Championship wide open?
That really remains to be seen.
Is it a co-incidence that the backdoor for hurling was introduced for the first time in 1997? Former GAA president Brennan, doesn’t think so.
‘I always felt that people read the back door wrong to an extent. The back door was about giving teams a minimum of two games in the Championship. Obviously, by giving teams two chances, it was inevitably going to favour the stronger teams because the likelihood is, if they were caught the first day, there was less chance of them getting caught the second day. That’s the same across any sport, where teams that have an off-day recover. ‘Unless you have a handicap system – and I really don’t know how that would work – there is no way around that. ‘The reason for the back door was because of the commitment the players were giving, the effort going into it - the justification for having just one day out was impossible to support. And the games needed greater exposure which the back door, by and large, has served to provide.’ Back door champions? Offaly in 1998. Cork in 2004. Tipperary in 2010. Kilkenny in 2012. Clare in 2013. There’s been two gatecrashers to the party in terms of hurling’s long-established aristocracy in the shape of Offaly and Clare.
The emergence of various all-conquering Kilkenny sides under Brian Cody did much to skew the roll call of champions, at least in terms of a democratic spread.
‘I take the point,’ says Brennan about the modern myth that the Liam MacCarthy Cup is within reach of a whole host of counties, ‘but it’s camouflaged by what is rightly called the greatest team of all time.
‘God knows people want a new team coming through but it is still surprising the number of people who enjoyed Kilkenny winning, the style and panache that went with it. The players and the skill.’
While he admits his native Kilkenny have slipped down the pecking order this spring, he adds: ‘Dismiss them at your peril.
‘I do think Galway are a serious threat. I don’t think Tipperary’s chances can be suddenly dismissed either. It does put question marks in the management’s minds over certain players. Séamus Callanan and Patrick ‘Bonner’ Maher didn’t start and they were 11 and 14 last year. And you’d expect your 11 and 14 to make big contributions. Maybe that’s the sort of jolt Tipperary needed.
‘As for Galway, it’s about bloody time. They are second in line to Tipperary at the moment. And Kilkenny are third.’
In terms of the game’s overall health though, he feels that focusing on the identity of the game’s All-Ireland winner is too narrow a view of the game’s wellbeing.
‘It is. And I’ll tell you why. I saw Kerry and Laois in the 1B relegation play-off. And it was fantastic entertainment.
‘Now either of those teams wouldn’t keep it pucked out to a Kilkenny or Tipperary – but that’s not the point. It was enormously entertaining. Similarly, the two first round games in Leinster last weekend which were tight. And Carlow against Antrim.
‘There is a dilemma here. There are six teams in Division 1A and three teams in Division 1B which really constitute tier one right now. Then you have a number of teams in tier two. And sadly there is a gap between those tiers.’
He sees change coming, even for 2018, with the mood for a Special Congress in October growing. ‘I think the provincial championships will be played on a round-robin basis,’ he says as hurling reacts to the introduction of the Super 8s in football.
In the meantime, summer will tell whether Galway’s League title can usher in a new era of change.