Well we give the GAA plenty of stick when they get things wrong, so it seems only fair to give them a dollop of praise when they get it right. It hasn’t happened yet, but the ideas posited by Aogán Ó Fearghaíl and co to revamp the hurling championship might just make the whole thing a bit more interesting again.

Ó Fearghaíl announced the ideas last week to have the championship played more along the lines of the existing league, with two groups of 5 teams from each province playing 4 times http://www.the42.ie/all-ireland-hurling-restructures-3377642-May2017/ Within this each side will have two home and away games. The two top teams advance to the provincial final with the third side taking up station in the quarter final. From there it would proceed along traditional championship lines.

Now I’ve written before about how the GAA should look to make the championship more like the league (http://sportstalk.ie/isnt-league-championship/) and it seems the organization may finally be starting to take my advice(!) Also, the fact that teams will have home games can’t but help improve the atmosphere at those contests you feel. But they’re still only dancing around the one stumbling block that continues to bother us: the provincial championships. It’s as if no-one is willing to let the old dog lie.

So, what’s to be done? Well, funnily enough Liam Griffin and David Herity appeared on RTE radio recently with a possible solution to the problem https://www.rte.ie/sport/gaa/2017/0508/873365-hurling-structure/  In the piece David said how, in Camogie, the provincial championship is played off in May, with the round robin for the proper championship taking place from June onwards. Now we know that women are the superior gender in almost every single way, but one area that us menfolk may have thought we had the upper hand in was sport and it’s administration. However, it seems to be that they’re better than us at that too.

The fact of the matter is that there’s nothing wrong with having a provincial competition, but trying to jam that square peg into the round hole that is the All-Ireland, is something that just won’t work, particularly when there’s four very unequal and contrasting provinces as we have at the moment. The provincial championships could exist quite easily as a pre-season competition though, like the Walsh cup, which funnily enough, bar a few university teams, is a defacto provincial championship anyway. Or else we could play them around springtime and the league around summer time. Simple isn’t it? Except of course, when it comes to the GAA, it really, really isn’t.

Then again there are ways in which the proposal makes sense. Any initiative which allows inter-county players have more game time in the sun has to be commended. It seems that this system is trying to replicate the new “Super 8” system in the football championship, which while definitely being elitist, that at least has the benefit of providing fans and players with more top-quality action in the summer months.

Again, before we bow down in praise before the organization there’s another few issues that need to be ironed out. Like the fact that the proposed round robin only contains ten teams. Now, you could argue that there are only 10 or so elite inter-county hurling teams in Ireland, and that’s still being generous to Offaly, but at the start of this year’s competition there were 14 teams involved.

Meath, Laois, Kerry and Westmeath have just completed their own Leinster championship round robin, and while the standard wasn’t exactly first rate, there’s no doubting the competitiveness of the games. Until now, a provincial quarter-final was held as the carrot on the stick for these teams, but if these proposals are agreed they’re likely to find themselves back playing in the Christy Ring Cup next year. Would they agree to that? Possibly, but it’s a tricky sell for sure.  

Then, we have the Galway problem. Now, the idea of the county getting to play two home games in a Leinster championship will definitely appeal to them, but there is the small conundrum of what’s to be done with their minor and under 21 teams who have been floating around in the ether for too long. Is it not just time for everyone to take the plunge and invite them into the Leinster underage competitions too?

Obviously, the argument from Wexford, Dublin et al will be “Why would we invite this team in when they could deny us silverware?” but it short-sightedly ignores the fact that if you aren’t going to beat a team in Leinster, you’re hardly going to do so at All-Ireland level either. Is that not the ultimate objective anyway? And it is not the case that consistently playing teams of a higher level will eventually raise your own standard? Or do they want a scenario where they’re like Antrim and constantly remain a big fish in a small pond? In fact, if these proposals are successful, the argument would be they could be adapted for minor and under 21 too.

Of course, in the hitherto mentioned Liam Griffin piece, he stated what actually needs to be done is a complete overhaul of the whole fixture schedule. And definitely, it’s a nice idea but will we get that? Maybe. Then again pigs might fly, Ed Sheeran might release a decent song, and the temperature in Hell may approach arctic like conditions.

So yes, in an ideal world there would be a defined fixture schedule, with club and county players having plenty of game time and knowing when those games are months in advance. But considering all the vested interests involved, we’re not going to get that in the near future, so at least console yourself with the fact that someday, somewhere down the line, it may happen. At least the above proposal seems a step in the right direction. If anything, we could borrow an old slogan from Irish rail. The GAA. We’re not there yet. But we’re getting there.