OLD BATTLE LINES REDRAWN
Expect another airing of the eternal Munster v Leinster debate
LAR Corbett posed an interesting question recently. If the Six Nations can be free-to-air, why are some box-office Munster hurling championship games behind the subscription paywall that is GAAGO? That was the thrust of the argument made by Tipperary’s double All-Ireland winner and former Hurler of the Year in his column.
‘Not showing last year’s Munster championship matches between Limerick and Clare and Tipp and Cork is unforgivable,’ he wrote. ‘Yet they’re going to do it again. Granted, the TV slots are not available on one station, but there’s capacity to cover more matches between TG4, RTÉ and Virgin.’
Except Virgin don’t have any slice of the current rights package. There is no contract in place there to allow for any such option.
The nature of media rights deals is that everything simply can’t be free to air – even some of the best games. Otherwise the value of the same deals would decrease dramatically – and so would the revenue pot that players themselves benefit from via the GPA’s cut of GAA revenue.
Now there certainly is an argument that hurling needs to be better served since the removal of Martin Fogarty as National Hurling Development Manager. And that includes promotion via some of the biggest games.
Corbett’s views channel a popular feeling that the best way to promote the game of hurling is to show the best games on terrestrial television.
As a proud Thurles Sarsfields clubman, he could be forgiven his Munster bias.
But conferring elevated status on Munster hurling doesn’t tend to go unnoticed in Leinster.
There was no national outcry or two-day edition of Liveline over the fact that Wexford’s thrill-aminute Leinster round robin game wasn’t covered live or on GAAGO last year – one that had actually more riding on it in a way than any Munster game given the threat of relegation to hurling’s second tier.
When Kilkenny captain Eoin Cody accepted the Bob O’Keeffe Cup after his team’s dramatic late winning goal against Galway last summer, he delivered a pointed message from the steps of the Hogan Stand: ‘There’s plenty of hurling in Leinster.’
And this weekend sees a round of fixtures that will feed into the eternal Munster versus Leinster hurling debate.
Kilkenny travel to Clare having beaten their opponents in back-toback All-Ireland semi-finals. The 2022 game was an embarrassingly one-sided affair, making a mockery of any claims that Clare looked like the second best team in the country after only losing to Limerick in the Munster final after an extra time thriller. The late loss of injured defensive lynchpin John Conlon aside, there was little to excuse such a hammering.
Last July’s rematch was a much more captivating affair and built up to Eoin Murphy’s ‘Save of the Century?!’ as photographic agency Sportsfile tagged it. But the final result was a Kilkenny win.
A home win in Ennis this afternoon would see Clare leapfrog Kilkenny to take top spot in the table and guarantee top flight status in 2025. So the stakes are high enough in their own right, even if manager Brian Lohan referred to the competition as ‘no big deal’ after Clare’s second round win over Waterford.
A Kilkenny win would only bolster the argument that Leinster hurling has plenty going for it as well. Wexford’s trip to Walsh Park to play Waterford feeds into the same long-running debate. Keith Rossiter’s side already battled their way to a draw against Clare and a win on the road like this would be a huge boost to their own bid to make the seven-team Division 1 that is being reconstituted next year.
As for the Munster versus Leinster argument – Davy Fitzgerald is in that rare position of having managed both counties. He told journalists before Christmas: ‘Munster is a minefield. It’s unbelievably competitive. If ye tell me ye can pick the three teams to come out of Munster next year, fair play to ye. I don’t think you could pick them. It’s going to be that tight.’
With Leinster having moved to a six-team group in recent years, there is no disputing that the same sense of jeopardy and competitiveness isn’t there – the 2019 edition was the culmination of that when Dublin versus Galway and Wexford versus Kilkenny took place simultaneously with the final three positions decided by the very last ball, Galway suffering a dramatic exit.
But the expansion was taken to allow the likes of Antrim, Westmeath or any of those counties trying to bridge the gap a better chance of staying up and avoiding the yo-yo effect that undermines development.
Cork will be hot favourites to beat Offaly at O’Connor Park this afternoon in another key game that crosses provincial boundaries but it comes with its own pressure for Pat Ryan’s side. Offaly have been competitive in the division to date and a win against the odds would be huge – not just for what it means in terms of their own development but in damaging Cork’s campaign after losing to Kilkenny and Clare narrowly already. The prospect of missing out on the top tier next year would then be very real.
Plenty to focus minds as Munster and Leinster opposition collide.
‘NO DISPUTING THAT THE SAME SENSE OF JEOPARDY ISN’T THERE’