The Inter county season runs from December until July. Maybe simpletons like @StoneCold @YellowBib @endakenny @Halfpipe can explain why itâs a smart idea to run off the majority of the important games people are interested in over the course of six or so weeks.
We flogg the players to death so they canât play with their clubs might be one reason.
So you crib about hurling not being competitive outside 6 or 7 counties but offer no solutions just endless winding up?
Maybe you need to get some real hobbies you fucking weirdo instead of repeating yourself all day.
Very simple invest in schools and underage. Start at the start.
A county getting really good at hurling is no differnet to a club.
How did nap get really good at hurling? They focused heavily on the underage.
There was no history of hurling in patrickswell until the 50s. They focussed heavily on underage and look what happened.
Limerick one all Ireland in 70 odd years. They focused heavily on underage and low and behold what happens.
Offaly had no Leinster title win until 1981. After investing heavily underage what happened ?
It isnât rocket science lads.
Maybe give up deliberately trying to misrepresent people to try and sound smart first like a good lad.
Sounds like extra revenue will be needed to fund this? As attendances at inter county games are the main source of income for the GAA, perhaps having more of them are necessary to pay for Games Development Officers, facilities etc to develop hurling in weaker counties.
A pay per view service might also be a good source of revenue, especially from expats, no?
Plus, you cannot force people on the ground to give up their time voluntarily to generate interest in hurling, especially in areas which have no history of playing the sport. You have to develop clubs first before you can have a successful county set up and that will require a lot of volunteers to get off the ground.
Give counties a chance.
You see it in sport more games and longer seasons means the disparity between the big counties and the weak counties will grow further and further apart.
Arsenal were able to stay with Man City with 25 games before they gave in. They ran out of bodies. That exact same thing happened last year in the hurling championship. Clare tapped out after the Munster final. Waterford weâre done after two rounds of the robin.
Clare were non triers in the league this year. Youâve a competition that nobody can really take seriously anymore taking up three months of the year. If Waterford had a two week break post the Limerick game they might have had some chance v cork but with a week everyone knew what would happen.
The attendances in the Munster championship are good but the attendances in the Leinster championship are diobolical. Weâve seen the crowds following the Dublin and mayo footballers fall off a cliff so I wouldnât be hanging my hat on the attendances at a few of the Munster games as an indicator of the health of the game.
You see the money theyâll waste redeveloping stadiums based on phantom attendances. Munster rugby done the same with Thomond park. They forgot to invest in the underage structures and look what happened. History will repeat itself with hurling.
If you are keeping this round robin then you have to bin the league. It gives at least four weeks extra for the clubs to run proper club championships as opposed to the mini blitzâs we see know. It also gives weaker counties with small squads a better chance because you can space the championship games better.
There maybe short term benefits to ppv but in the long term it is a disaster. Rugby, cricket, horse racing and various other niche sports suffered massively from it.
Particularly now the best of the gaa games are going head to head with soccer and rugby games as well. You will gain an edge if your sport is free to view. Itâs already cheaper to play soccer and rugby. All you need is a pair of boots.
Senior all Ireland winners leading a team to junior all Ireland ? Glass was poor in some of glens games and I think he was carrying an injury for semi final and final
One swallow doesnât make a summer. The inter county season is too much for players and thereâll be little or no meat left on the bone for the club season.
Keep repeating this season over five years and youâll see the state the county players are in.
Give me your 12 month county and club schedule please.
As @bisto has stated Glass had effectively hit the wall once Glen reached Croke Park and was largely subdued in the Semi final and Final. He struggled for form and fitness all spring too before coming up with some big moments in the recent Ulster Final. Ethan Doherty is in a similar boat. Shane Walsh also had hit the wall after the club season finished and begged Padraig Joyce to let him off to Australia to recharge the batteries.
The body language of inter county players and teams in general has looked absolutely awful in recent weeks. Limerick have about 5 or 6 lads who visibly look like they donât want to be there. Waterford and Wexford the same. Even looking at Kilkenny v Galway a few weeks ago they looked like two teams going through the motions and fulfilling the fixture for the sake of it. Kilkenny hadnât much zip against Dublin Saturday evening either.
On the Football side, i know lads involved in Tipp, Clare and Leitrim and they all cant wait for the thing to be over. Most of the Tailteann Cup teams in the same boat. And whatever about those teams who have little chance of winning anything, Tyrone look totally disinterested, losing players at an alarming rate while even Kerry were by as flat as pancakes at the weekend.
Iâd put a lot of it down to them most being back training hard since last October with no break in the interim. That 5 or 6 week window in April/May used be absolutely vital for refreshing players. Go back to your club, play a few games and maybe get away for a short holiday. That day is gone now.
I know for a fact Waterford players found winning the League in 2022 a totally joyless experience compared to their League win in 2015. In 2015, they celebrated for 2 days, went back to their clubs for a couple of weeks and still had two weeks to get right for Championship. Last year they were training the next day. After winning their first championship match in 2015 they celebrated it too. Last year they beat Tipp (a big win for them) on Easter Sunday and were playing Limerick 6 days later. No wonder they bombed out. Nowadays does anyone get to blow off some steam after winning a championship match bar maybe a Munster or All Ireland final?
To justify the split season they had to populate it with leagues, mini leagues and round robins. The net result will be more Brian Fentonâs taking the club season off to go off and do other things as they will be all burned out. And nobody wants that.
The 2021 Inter County Hurling Championship ran off quite well (bar the fact crowds were limited) from June 26th to Aug 22nd with a knockout/backdoor structure and was followed by the best club championship of all. That is the type of window they should be looking at repeating (Maybe start a few weeks earlier around June 5th) with a proper National League from February to April and a good enforced Club window for much of April and May. How counties use that window is up to themselves whether its County League, Divisional or County Championship. In places like Tipp with divisions then you might play divisional games in that window, otherwise if you believe in a more concise Club Championship you can wait until August like everyone had to in 2021 and instead fit in some County League matches with County players. The problem in 2018 and 2019 was the Club month in April was far too early in the month, i.e. games played on April 2nd and 9th - if those games were played on April 23rd, 30th and May 7th & 14th it would have been fine with an Inter County Championship starting 3 weeks later.
Everyone is talking about how great the Munster Championship is this week and rightly so in many ways, but in three weeks time when we are in what Iâd really call âhigh summer,â that will be largely forgotten when Limerick or Cork are putting 6 goals past Carlow in a Prelim QF, and the only knockout hurling on the horizon is Tipp or Clare giving Dublin a pasting in a Quarter Final on a Saturday lunchtime with about 10k in attendance.
The split season zealots have their tails up since Sunday when there were two good occasions in Munster, but when you delve a bit deeper its pretty obvious the problems it causes far outweigh the benefits across the wider GAA landscape.
Also very disappointing to read some of the nasty attacks on my interest in Association Football and Horse Racing yesterday evening. I have a depth of knowledge on the Club GAA scene that the average split season zealot could only dream of.
Lot of personalised attacks lately from the split season zealots. Always a sure sign of losing an argument. @StoneCold the latest to lash out this morning.
I suspect heâs battling hard against the onset of burnout alright & heâs definitely not firing on all cylinders. And though it didnât get much media attention, I spotted an Armagh player appearing to stamp on him when he was prone at one stage in the recent final. It might not have been intentional but it was at best a reckless case of walking on walking on broken Glass.
That time you were called a âheadbangerâ for your troubles when calling into question player welfare of medical students who were asked to play I/C U20 games the night before important exams was a real low point for the forum.
Great post.
Go back over the audit trail and check who made the first personalised attack there Geoff
Its a bit of a humdinger alright even if I do say so myself.
It will be interesting to see what way the zealots approach it with a co-ordinated response or if they respond at all.
Posters stating county players are burnt out so cant perform for their clubs. The 2 Cliffordâs prove otherwise.
Club championship in April doesnt work mate. Ask any player involved.