Where have the glory days gone?

Blackrock and Glen Rovers, two of hurling’s biggest club names in the country, will battle each other to avoid relegation from the senior grade if they lose their championship games tonight.

How did that happen? Along with St Finbarr’s, these are two of the ‘Big Three’ of Cork hurling: between them the three have 82 Cork senior hurling titles. Are they just having a bad patch, or is there a deeper problem here, one with implications for the GAA a whole? Alan Browne collected three county titles with Blackrock, going back to their last championship win in 2002. He says the Rockies have been doing well at underage level in recent years, but he rounds out that picture fully.

“The minors have been good, so have the U21s, and we were expecting the U21s to come through already, maybe, but there are no guarantees.