Saturday, April 17, 2010
FOR the second year in a row we end up with a situation where the last round of the league is more or less meaningless, everything decided bar who is to be relegated.
Cork and Galway meet in Pearse Stadium tomorrow — for what? They’ve both qualified for the NHL final, so why play this game?
It’s costing the Cork board to bring a team to Galway, it’s a cost on their Galway equivalents to host the game — I doubt they’re going to see any profit on this one, because who’s going to go, with nothing at stake?
Is everything set in stone in the GAA? There’s controversy over the time that the final is fixed for on May 2, (7pm to avoid clashing with the Munster rugby game).
So why not hold it on Sunday week, at the regular time in the afternoon?
Why could they not have just done away with this round, bring the final forward a week, save everyone the expense and save all the hassle on the Bank Holiday weekend?
I know the football finals are also on next weekend, but that’s a different game with a different crowd following the Cork footballers than the hurlers. Whatever way it could have been handled, the way it is being handled makes no sense to me whatsoever.
Speaking of which, I don’t think the new league format makes any sense either.
The old way was the way to go; the top two teams in Division One qualified directly for the semi-finals, the next two met the top two in Division Two in quarter-finals, and so on to a
conclusion. It meant that even on the last day there was still plenty for everyone to play for, rather than the scenario we’ve had for the last two years with so many dead rubbers.
And very often too, we had some excellent games in those quarter-finals and semi-finals, with good crowds. I do like this new make-up of the divisions, eight each in the two top flights, which gave us some superb matches, but I don’t like the concluding format.
THE ONLY game worth talking about tomorrow is the relegation battle between Dublin and Limerick. A big game for the Shannonsiders, with the possibility of avoiding the drop, but this is a far bigger game for Dublin.
Dublin started the league poorly with a heavy loss in Waterford, but they recovered well from that to beat Tipperary comprehensively in Parnell Park next time out.
Since then they’ve failed to win a game; they lost narrowly to Kilkenny, Cork and Galway before suffering a heavy defeat away to Offaly in a tie they were expected to win.
I said last year that Dublin’s progress would be measured on how they fared this year, how they reacted to being classed with the big teams. So far, they haven’t reacted very well, and that loss to Offaly was the best indication of where they are.
Dublin got themselves up for what they saw as the big challenges, against the likes of Kilkenny, Cork, Tipperary and Galway, but to survive at this level, to progress at this level, you must be up for every game — they weren’t up for Offaly.
Well, they had better be up for this one, or they could find themselves in real trouble.
I have a question here — how serious are the Dublin GAA public about hurling?
Even last year, when the team were going well, and got to a Leinster final, the fans failed to get behind them, not a fraction of the support you see for the footballers.
Even if Dublin were in position to qualify for a league final tomorrow, instead of battling relegation, what kind of support would they have?
So, what kind of support will they have now? A pity, really; in my lifetime, I’ve never seen a Dublin hurling team even come near to filling Croke Park — I’d love to, I think it would be a real shot in the arm for hurling, but now, I don’t think I’m ever going to see it. To have any possibility at all of that ever happening, however, they simply must win this game — losing is not an option.
Dublin have a far superior scoring difference, but that doesn’t count; it’s straight head-to-head — another development, by the way, I don’t like in this new league format.
I think it’s very unfair, and not just in this instance — every game in every division should count, and every score in every game.
Dublin have to approach this game like a straight knockout championship game, because you can be certain that that’s the way Limerick will be approaching it.
I’ve focused on Dublin in this piece, for the simple reason that where Limerick have latitude, Dublin have none — a defeat would be disastrous for them.
For that reason, and though in normal circumstances I would go with Limerick, I fancy Dublin.
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