Blaming this loss on mere fatigue ignores some key questions

THE LEINSTER Senior hurling championship picture looks a good deal clearer after last weekend’s action, although there was little to enthuse over in the course of Saturday’s comprehensive defeat to the champions.

While I agree that playing three games of such importance in the space of 13 days is far from ideal, equally I believe there’s more to our disappointingly flat display than mere fatigue.

After all, that match against Offaly was scarcely a contest after ten minutes, whereas Galway had to put a considerably greater effort into beating Kilkenny less than 24 hours later.

And yes, I appreciate they went into that game after a week’s break, but I still imagine the westerners would have taken longer to recover from those exertions than their Wexford counterparts who had a one-day head start on them early last week.

The uneven schedule may still be one factor, but it’s clearly not the only one and that’s the important point. To suggest that tired limbs caused this defeat, and nothing else, is to ignore some glaring questions that must be asked and hopefully addressed.

Firstly, are we locked in completely to the sweeper system, or do we have another plan to fall back on, or at least try, in order to keep the opposition on their toes?

Secondly, having spent so long in training working on building from the back with short passes line to line, why does our distribution of the ball continue to be so poor?

And after being absolutely annihilated in the air by Galway in last year’s Leinster final, have we addressed the issue in any meaningful way or do we simply not have any answers to dealing with their route one approach?

I’m also beginning to wonder if the mentors have full faith in their squad, given that only two substitutes were used against Dublin, and three on Saturday. We don’t seem to spring as many players from the bench as the top contenders, so the panel strength appears to be an issue.

The good thing, I guess, is that we travel to Nowlan Park on Saturday safe in the knowledge that, even in the worst case scenario, we will be hurling into July.

It’s a straight head-to-head for a provincial final place, with the victors getting another crack at Galway on July 1, while the losers will meet the beaten Joe McDonagh Cup finalists in a preliminary All-Ireland quarter-final on the weekend of July 7-8.

Elsewhere in Leinster, Offaly’s relegation was confirmed by Sunday’s hammering against the Dubs in Parnell Park, and I know many people are starting to think maybe that’s not such a bad thing after all given their extremely poor performances.

However, I stand by my opinion that they should be granted a reprieve, but only for one year as the McDonagh Cup champions deserve to be promoted every season and clearly we cannot bring teams up continuously without sending others down.

There is an opening for this to happen just the once though, and it would actually completely kill off the argument that certain teams are favoured by the timing of their byes in Leinster.

In terms of calendar dates, there’s no difference between having five or six teams involved, because it will take five rounds to complete either way. One problem I can foresee, though, is that while none of the other managers of Leinster teams favour Offaly being relegated, they wouldn’t like facing five opponents rather than four either.

Would Davy want to play over five weeks, instead of four out of five with a bye thrown in randomly, in our case this year in week one?

I doubt it, and I can understand why given the mental and physical exertion involved. Still, there’s a three-week gap between next week’s round five games and the Leinster final.

My solution? Leave a space of two rather than three weeks next year prior to the decider. Keep Offaly there and promote the McDonagh winners, hopefully our neighbours Carlow. Each team plays for three straight weeks, followed by a one-week break for all, and then everyone lines out again for another two weeks.

As for relegation, suspend it until next year, and make the bottom Leinster team play their Munster counterpart (why should they be treated differently than our province?), with the loser to go down.