Offaly, a candle in the wind?

Great to see Offaly back in contention in this year's Liam McCarthy even if I believe that their involvement will be snuffed out like a candle later this week when they take on Waterford in the qualifiers.
I'm still not sure whether what we saw on Saturday night was the beginning of the long road back for the Faithful County or just a horror picture for the long suffering Limerick hurling.
The Treatymen were only a shadow of the side which played with such guts and heart last season which took them all the way to the All-Ireland final.
However, it's clear that Limerick have gone backwards since then.
It was obvious last year that they were two to three players short of being a side capable of renewing their challenge and the fear then was once everyone had worked them out that they would exit the national stage as quickly as they had re-entered it.
Sadly that has been the case after a disastrous league campaign and once Offaly got stuck in to them and opened up a two goal lead it was hard to see where the inspiration would come from for a fight back.
It wasn't a lack of effort but their key forwards, Niall and Ollie Moran were having a nightmare and Brian Geary and Mark Foley endured a torrid time at half back.
Stephen Lucey too so often a key man at the heart of the Limerick defence has had a poor year being cleaned out by Clare in the Munster semi and conceding three goals to Joe Bergin on Saturday.
This is a huge setback for Limerick hurling and I can't see them coming back from this one in the near future.
Some of the older players will wonder if it's worth going on, the promise of good Under 21 sides early in the decade now long dissipated.
For Offaly, this result will be a huge lift in new boss Joe Dooley's first year in charge.
Leinster hurling needs a good Offaly side but Saturday night's performance will only mean anything if they can go out and put on a show against Waterford.
An Offaly win or a close contest would show that the gap between the Munster and Leinster championships may not be as pronounced as we have been led to believe in recent seasons.

Munster win signal that Tipp have arrived

The Munster hurling final may not have delivered on its promise of a great contest between two sides hungry for honours but it has signalled the arrival of a Tipp side who were a joy to watch.
Liam Sheedy's team showed that their National League win was no one off and this young Premier side looked equipped to take on even the mighty Cats.
I have always believed there is no substitute for class and the Tipp lads showed that in abundance on Sunday.
They seemed to be able to take their scores at will from all angles but this was due to some great passing into the front three and great movement at pace off the ball by Lar Corbett in particular which created the openings for Tipp to finally put Clare to the sword.
Tipp to be honest looked good all over the field.
Their full back line gave Clare no quarter whatsoever and it was no fluke that Niall Gilligan only got into the game after half time when he moved out the field.
It was a tough day at the office for Gilligan and young Mark Flaherty in the opening half.
Eamon Corcoran put in another mighty performance in half back and while Clare had purple patches in the middle of the field Shane McGrath kept working hard and eventually came out on top.
Tipp enjoyed a great return from their half forwards Seamus Callinan and John O'Brien, their two goals were really nails in the Banner men's coffin.
Eoin Kelly put in another good solid performance and I think he has been helped by the fact that the team is no longer so dependent on him to bring home the bacon, Kelly can afford to play almost like a mere mortal these days and the team will come up with the goods.
Corbett is absolutely flying this season. He seems to be playing much more consistently and his constant probing is opening up gaps in any defence he has faced so far.
What most impressed me was the sheer quality of Tipp's striking and movement and they matched this with the toughness required to face strong opposition.
Of course they still have to face the Cats and will have to overcome another stiff test in the All-Ireland semi final no matter who comes through the qualifiers just to earn the right to take on the champions.
However, they look for the first time in years like the genuine article.
They are a young side and have a conveyor belt of young talent breaking through to suggest that they will be a force for a few years to come.
Hurling badly needs at least one team capable of a genuine rivalry with the Cats and the Premier County men look like the team best equipped to put in a sustained challenge, but try telling that to Galway!

Davy Fitz not for real

Davy Fitzgerald obviously has a sense of humour when he says that Antrim are getting ready to throw the kitchen sink at his Waterford team in the qualifiers following the Saffrons' 26-point defeat at the hands of Galway last weekend.
I know that managers can't allow their teams to get complacent and Davy Fitz is going to be at the helm of Waterford for the first time but this type of codology puts me up the walls.
Antrim are not at the races on the national stage and nor will they be in the foreseeable future.
We don't play regularly enough at the level required to compete with any of the top teams and that goes for all our underage teams as well as the seniors.
When it comes to the Liam McCarthy Cup the record books don't lie, we have been to two finals in the last 100 years and were slaughtered in both of them and we have been on a downward spiral since the '89 team's last hurrah against Kilkenny in the '91 semi final.
If Antrim were to beat a Waterford side which has won three Munsters and a National League in the last six seasons it would be the biggest shock since David beat Goliath.
One of the problems I feel for Ulster hurling has been the fact that everyone is too well mannered when it comes to speaking about Antrim or Down on the All-Ireland stakes.
No one down below wants to say out loud what they think about the true state of northern hurling, they have too much respect for the people trying to promote the game than to hurt their feelings.
It's about time someone like Davy Fitz said "Antrim are crap, we're going to use them for target practice for the forwards before we get down to more serious business and if my side don't win by a hatful of points then I'm out of here".
There is nothing more likely to inspire northern hurlers than to be told they should not be at the top table, not this year mind you, but it might just bring a bit of steel into the efforts to promote the game up here.
Being patted on the head for turning up is probably more insulting than telling the truth that we don't at this stage belong up there with the elite.

Leinster not an option for ailing hurling

I see Sambo McNaughton has called again for Antrim to be allowed to play in the Leinster championship.
Sambo is right when he says that Antrim will get no better playing in the Ulster championship and the Saffrons have continued to slip out of contention at national level as the Ulster championship falls further and further behind.
Once I would have agreed with Antrim playing in Leinster as they would be sure to get competitive games as long as they didn't meet the Cats.
However, I think that it has gone beyond competing in Leinster.
It's a long time since the Leinster hurling championship was worthy of the name, it is a one-horse race and the only chance any one else has of winning it is if the Cats field the camogie team.
None of the other sides in Leinster are even competitive on a national level.
In the qualifiers, which will take place over the next couple of weeks, Laois, Offaly and Dublin will all be beaten by Galway and the Munster sides while Antrim will get a bad beating in Waterford who now have something to prove under their new boss Davy Fitzgerald.
I think the malaise in Antrim hurling can't now be fixed by playing in the Leinster championship but by playing instead in an intermediate championship made up of those sides just outside the top tier.
It's only when the Saffrons can prove to be too good at that level that they should move up to take on the titans.
Where I do agree with Sambo whole heartedly is that the status quo is not an option, hurling needs a change, there are too many meaningless games, which the public now avoid like the plague, and no one could argue that standards have risen outside hurling's heartlands.
Doing nothing other than going through the motions can only lead to the game going backwards and no one can want that, can they?

Hurling set-up just not cricket

For the sake of hurling we have to bring to an end once and for all mismatches like the Galway Antrim game on Saturday.
They wouldn't allow a match like this in boxing never mind let the manager throw the towel in.
Even in the great imperialist game of cricket the winning team can declare to spare the blushes of weaker opposition.
In hurling however, it's just murder for the two teams involved, the supporters and the officials when one team is simply running away with the game.
And it's not that we don't know that the gap between Antrim and Galway is a chasm.
The 'reward' for the Tribesmen is to go through this same ritualistic killing next weekend when they go to the Midlands to slaughter the O'Moore county men of Laois.
Not that this even benefits the Tribesmen who have endured weeks of inaction as the hurlers of Munster cut lumps out of each other for local honours and the hurlers of Leinster apart from the Gods of Kilkenny at least have had a decent rattle at each other.
But for Ger Loughnane's team these games are fraught with danger as the only thing they can get out of them is the risk of injury to a top player.
No good player gets any better playing against poor opposition and if anything they can pick up bad habits, through having extra yards and time on the sliotar.
For the Antrim lads it is purely reinforcement of what they already know that they are not good enough to be at the top table and that they are on an annual hiding to nothing.
There is a need for an intermediate championship which could include Dublin, Wexford, Offaly, Antrim, Laois and either Westmeath, Down or Kerry.
The provincial championships should be scrapped. Ulster is meaningless and gets mediocre a bad name. Leinster is a side show with only Munster providing any thrills.
But can we go on with the championship charade simply because Munster still has something to offer in terms of crowds and local bragging rights, can it not be played outside the championship structure if it still means so much?
Realistically there are only seven sides in the country in the top grade, the five top Munster sides, Kilkenny and Galway, all of whom outside of Waterford have featured in All-Ireland finals in this decade and the Decies have a National League and three Munsters to their credit since 2002.
Let the others fight for the last place and then play two groups of four for the right to contest the semis.
It might not be the solution but can anyone defend a system which allows teams to be slaughtered physically and psychologically like Saturday's 'game' at Casement.
It's just not cricket!

Ulster experiment should be wound up

Antrim have limped through the Ulster championship seeing off Down and Derry but by no means looking like they are at least a division better than their Ulster rivals.
The Saffrons struggled to see of a Down side missing Magic Johnstone and the improvement needed in less than a fortnight to even put it up to high flying Galway seems beyond them.
Sambo McNaughton remains as honest as ever and one Eff didn't wait on another when talking to the press after the game.
McNaughton knows that a repeat of Sunday's performance against Galway will end in tears and Antrim will be left licking their wounds after another heavy defeat.
To be honest I fear for our lads in a fortnight's time.
I believe they will raise their game a notch as the over familiarity and the fact that the Saffrons were going for their seventh Ulster in a row in what is now a meaningless championship obviously has taken some of the fire out of the contest.
Down are working hard to develop the game outside its Ards base and there are some signs of hope in South Down and with the efforts of the Bredagh club in south Belfast to promote the game.
It could be another five years before the county side sees the full benefit of this but if this doesn't work the game will die in the county.
The base the Ards teams have drawn off in the past has narrowed considerably as the day of the big hurling family producing three and four brothers for the local side is gone and falling school numbers tell their own tale.
The Ulster experiment of all nine counties competing added a little interest to the season but on its own did little to lift the standard of play, indeed it added to the mediocrity.
All the Ulster sides outside of Antrim should be playing in the lesser competitions and while the aspiration to have a fully contested Ulster championship is indeed a noble one the hurling authorities need to look no further than Leinster to see the effect a poor championship can have on the game.

Dubs need to get monkey off their back

The Dublin Wexford clash ending up being an exciting match as the Model men almost stole a game which Dublin shot themselves out of.
However, the exciting finish could not disguise the mediocrity of much of the hurling on display.
The Dubs shot 19 wides and some of the misses when the pressure was building on them in the second half were unforgivable.
Wexford scored one point in the whole of the first half, in injury time, and it was no accident as they really were that bad, out played in every part of the field.
I noticed Kilkenny boss Brian Cody watching the game and he must have thought at that stage that he could probably field half the county's camogs and still come out on top against the pick of the two sides on show!
Dublin need to get over the psychological barrier of beating Wexford in the championship if they are to get up to the next level and they need to do it soon otherwise it will end up as a monkey on their back.
And lets's be honest this is the poorest Wexford team since the Model men started to come back on the national landscape in the early '90s.
The Dubs will feel that they played well enough to win and if they can sharpen up in front of the posts then they may at least book their first Leinster final place since '91.
They are hard working but the first touch at times isn't good enough to match any of the current top sides.
Too many players need a second bite at the cherry and the full back line's defending of the two goals was painful.
The Wexford fightback and the fact Dublin then lost their nerve when they had chances to again put the game beyond Wexford shows that the Dubs are lacking the mental toughness and experience required to put a bad team to the sword.
I just don't know where Wexford go from here. Their season has been a horror picture so far and they have Division 2 to look forward to next season.
Rory Jacobs remains their best forward and I saw nothing in their young players to suggest that the county will be competitive again in the near future.

Hurling set-up attracting poor crowds

The hurling championships are supposed to move up another gear this weekend with the semi finals in Leinster and the Ulster final.
The hurling public however, are voting with their feet on the current set-up.
By the time all three games are played, including the first outing of the All-Ireland champions Kilkenny, there will be fewer people at the three games this weekend than were in Cork last week for the Munster game between Cork and Tipp.
The GAA will not face any inquiries after this weekend's games about too many people trying to get into the ground!
Despite the much-awaited Dublin revival in hurling half of Nowlan Park was empty for today's game against Wexford.
It will be the same tomorrow when the Cats face Offaly and Antrim take on Down.
Tomorrow's games have a real air of predictability about them.
In the first we will be interested only in how long Offaly can live with the champions.
In Ulster even if Down win they won't have a place in this year's Liam McCarthy with Antrim already set to face Galway in a fortnight's time.
Outside of Munster the games lack any real meaning and I thought that today's crowd at what should be the only competitive hurling match of the weekend said it all about what the public think about the status quo.
This uneven and unfair build-up to the latter stages isn't doing anything to promote hurling, do we have to wait until the hurlers are playing in empty venues before this malaise is dealt with?

Hurler played club game before provincial semi

Heard an interesting story after the recent Ulster Hurling Championship semi finals.
One of the players who played in a provincial hurling semi final had played in a club game earlier that day as a second half substitute.
I was absolutely gobsmacked at the idea of it.
I didn't publish this sooner because I checked it twice over and it's legit 100 per cent.
I know players can be put under pressure by their loyalty to their club side but is there any other province in the country where a player would tog out for the club on the same day as a provincial semi final.
Can't see any of the Clare lads doing that last weekend or anyone from Waterford.
Suppose it's no wonder we are light years behind in the national hurling stakes when our players have an attitude like this about playing in a provincial semi final.

Hurling fixture a sick joke

You can't exactly accuse the Ulster hurling authorities of pulling out all the stops to promote the championship despite having nine counties plus London competing this season.
Is there anywhere else in the country that a championship hurling match would be played at eight pm on a Sunday night?
We will be able to play spot the crowd at what is after all an Ulster championship semi final between the province's top team Antrim and Derry.
Now I know the game was refixed because Derry are also playing in the football earlier that day in Ballybofey where their All-Ireland pretensions will be put to the test but in the day of computer generated fixtures I wonder how no one realised until this week that we were going to have a clash between the football and hurling championships.
Derry Donegal was always going to be on live television too and it beats me why no one seemed to notice.
The truth is that despite the fanfare surrounding the relaunch of the championship no one is that interested in it.
It is the only championship in the country more predictable than the Leinster hurling championship, ie Antrim will win it again unless we have a tragedy on the scale of the Munich air disaster, but the quality of hurling is second rate.
However, even players at the lower levels deserve a chance to play in front of a decent crowd and at a time of the day where they won't need radar to spot the sliotar.
I will in the meantime continue to long for Antrim to be allowed to play in the Leinster Championship where at least we might get a championship match worthy of the name.

Leinster crying out for a make-over

Offaly simply brushed Laois aside today in the first round clash in Leinster but the hurling fare on show was very poor.
Laois are just not up to the task, they have really slipped further behind in the province, and Brian Cody will not have been frightened by anything he saw today when his All-Ireland champions face the Faithful County in the Leinster semi final.
Joe Dooley on the other hand has a huge task on his hands to turn Offaly's fortunes round.
I think the two games in Leinster today just make the case for Antrim and Galway to compete in the Leinster competition undeniable.
Galway would be a real contender for the title and their inclusion and Antrim's would at least make the earlier rounds a bit more meaningful as the Saffrons on their day are capable of beating anyone else in the southern province outside of the Cats.
The Munster championship starts next week and I am really looking forward to what at least should be some competitive hurling played by two sides who have a lot to prove.
I can't wait as what has passed for championship hurling in Ulster and Leinster so far just doesn't cut it.

Ulster championship building to an anti-climax

Did anyone watch the Ulster hurling championship games last weekend? I have to admit that I still don't get it.
Last week it was Tyrone against Fermanagh, this week it's London against the Red Hands.
Does it matter, does anyone care.
Let's face it the only benefit to Ulster might be that if London get knocked out early enough we won't have the farce of them playing in Ulster semi finals.
I don't see the much boosted Ulster championship as the way forward for hurling in the province.
I would love to think it will get better over seasons, but to be honest I don't. I believe it will still be between Antrim, North and South.
Down are gone, Derry are hanging on by their fingernails and given another revival in football hurling will slip further behind.
If we are serious about making the championship more competitive should we not create a couple of amalgamated teams, Down, Monaghan and Armagh say, and the rest of the province outside Antrim.
Amalgamated teams have worked in club leagues, the Sean Stinsons minor experiment between Portglenone and Ahoghill in the mid '90s have been the catalyst for the advance first of Portglenone and now Ahoghill in Antrim.
We are just simply building to an anti-climax when these Cinderella sides get slaughtered by Antrim, who in turn will get the guttie at the hands of Galway!

Mixed feelings on Ulster experiment

Have to say I have very mixed feelings about the decision to allow all the Ulster sides to take part in the Ulster Championship this year.
I know all good things have to start somewhere and while realistically the Ulster title comes down to Antrim at this point in time, I refuse to believe that even Derry or Down are at the races right now, the hope is obviously that if teams compete at this level they will eventually improve.
I don't think this is the case at all. Remember the short lived Connacht championship experiment of the '90s, the GAA had to stop it after a few short years because Galway were running up scores more in common with the Australian cricket team at their finest.
There is no doubt that the early rounds in Ulster will be keenly contested but when the minnows come up against Antrim, Derry or Down then we are going to need umpires and allow mentors to throw the towel in when their teams have soaked up enough punishment.
I think the answer lies not in opening up the Ulster championship but the continued development of the game in the traditional base in the North first and foremost to up standards and to build on work in the smaller counties.
I wish the Ulster Council well with the experiment but I feel it's doomed to fail and it will be a real chore for Antrim to play the couple of meaningless games to secure the title.

Boredom killing off interest in hurling

I think there is an awful lot of complacency in hurling at the top levels and if the evidence of yesterday's National League quarter finals is anything to go by the public is switching off from a game which has become completely dominated by the deep south of the country.
Only a very small number of supporters turned up for yesterday's games between four of the country's top sides and this was at the knock-out stages of the competition.
Contrast this with the 7,000 people who turned out at Celtic Park on Saturday night for the Tyrone Derry group game and it says something about the attitude of the hurling public.
After all why turn out in numbers when they will watch the same four sides play against each other in the Munster hurling championship when they are firing on all cylinders and some of them will probably play at least once again in the All-Ireland's latter stages.
It is an indication once again of how narrow the hurling base is in the country but the boredom for most at this part of the season is palpable and those tasked with promoting the game must be able to see that the public is voting with its feet because there are so few real contenders.