All games have their own particular qualities

I’m still trying to figure out the point your correspondent, Martin Collins, was attempting to make by comparing the various qualities of two quite different field sports from his anecdotal observation of two particular games. (Letters 22 August).

Clearly he believes, from the evidence of the recent Tipperary v Galway senior hurling semi-final and the Manchester City v Chelsea encounter, what football (soccer) lacks in skill, intensity, and sheer nail-biting excitement, hurling makes up for in bucket loads.

And certainly, hurling, played at its best, can indeed be a joy to behold. But a first-class cricket match, played over five days, before attendances well in excess of 100,000 excitable, knowledgable and fanatically partisan spectators can also produce all the qualities Mr Collins attributes exclusively to hurling.