We often hear of how the GAA has failed hurling, with the game played to a high standard in only a handful of counties.
And from those, how many could actually win the All-Ireland? I would say seven - Kilkenny, Limerick, Cork, Galway, Clare, Cork and Tipperary.
I’d find it very hard to see Wexford, Dublin or even Waterford going all the way in the near future, given where they are coming from right now.
I always felt that Clare would beat Dublin last weekend, though I thought that it would be a decent contest for around 55 minutes. Dublin only got to 25 before being annihilated.
Money is seen as the catch-all solution to developing hurling, but if it was that simple, why aren’t Dublin far more successful?
Brian Lohan suggested that his Clare side were further down the line but, when you think about it, are they really?
Look at Danny Sutcliffe, Eoghan O’Donnell and Donal Burke (granted, he came off injured) - all seasoned players who would get on any team.
You have Conor Burke at centre-back, Paddy Smyth in the corner. Daire Gray marked me in a challenge game in Parnell Park maybe eight years ago.
A bit like Waterford, it’s hardly a new team.
But, imagine if Waterford, Wexford or Tipperary - or the Dublin footballers - shipped a beating like that - there would be uproar. Because it’s Dublin, it’s greeted with a shrug of the shoulders, largely because they are not a traditional hurling county.
So, essentially, it comes back to mindset, which will always trump money.
Pump in the finance and fill every county with GDAs and of course it will help, but it’s not the solution in itself.
Going back to Waterford, while I’ve said that I don’t envisage them winning an All-Ireland any time soon, I can still see a pathway to one for them given the status of the game in the county.
They should always have a team capable of competing, like they have for the last 25 years or so.
Similarly, when I was growing up in Limerick, rugby was number one as Munster blazed a trail through Europe, while the county hurlers hadn’t been successful in years. But I was still acutely aware of the hurling tradition in Limerick and took confidence and belief from it.
And the hardest thing to do is to change tradition. And what point, if ever, will the Dublin hurlers get the same support at the Dublin footballers? It’s like wondering when Limerick’s football support will match that of the hurlers.
You could nearly count the number of blue jerseys in Limerick last Saturday. Outside of players’ family and friends, would Dublin’s support have numbered more than a few hundred? That all bleeds down and forms a culture which contributes to beatings like the one they took from Clare.
Dublin published an ambitious hurling ‘Blueprint’ back in 2001, with winning at least one All-Ireland by 2008 among the stated aims.
Granted, it succeeded in growing the game in the capital to a degree, but has fallen short of introducing a “dedicated hurling culture”, with Dublin having very much flatlined over the past decade or so.
They, and several other counties like Westmeath, Laois and Antrim, need a fresh plan that will deliver lasting change.
Shefflin got his tactics spot on
Are Galway better than they have been given credit for, by myself and others?
I couldn’t see them beating Tipperary last Saturday but I noted something in them that hadn’t been apparent during Henry Shefflin’s tenure - a steely determination.
Yes, Tipperary were poor but maybe Galway played their part in that too.
Credit to Shefflin, he got his tactics spot on and pulled a trick by playing Cathal Mannion as a sweeper, similar to what Davy Fitzgerald employed with Waterford against Limerick in that he placed him on one side of the pitch.
He closed off the space so the Galway defence knew that the ball was more likely to go the other side. It was something that Tipp didn’t get to grips with, either lumping it down to Mannion or to that other side, which Galway were able to read well.
All told, it sets Shefflin’s charges up nicely for another crack at Limerick next weekend.
Lead-in to Kilkenny game crucial for Clare
This is a big week for Clare, not so much on the field, but off it.
They clearly didn’t deal with the run-in to the semi-final well last year and must get it right this time, otherwise Kilkenny will send them packing once again.
They have suffered a few knocks and injuries, and we saw how much of a loss John Conlon was in last year’s semi-final, so their medical team will be busy in the coming days.
Let’s hope they’re fully locked and loaded as this one has all the makings of a cracker.
Galway loss will hurt but Tipp can look to 2024 with optimism
Overall, it’s been a positive year for Tipperary but I was very disappointed with them against Galway.
I felt they were really going to be a force at the back end of the Championship and was fully expecting a Tipp-Limerick semi-final.
Liam Cahill has brought them on but, as he said himself in the aftermath of the defeat, he needs to find some new talent.
But he’s building from a good base in that respect having already phased in the likes of Rhys Shelly and Gearoid O’Connor, both of whom have been real finds. Alan Tynan also stood up this year while Jake Morris emerged as a real leader.
So, it’s not all doom and gloom and with a few tweaks and lessons learned by both players and management, they should enter 2024 in a good space.
