Cusack brings fresh thinking to an old debate
Three years ago this column was demoralised watching League Sunday. After a decent colour piece from Marty brought from the Glens of Antrim, it was back to the studio for the usual clichés and solutions about what to do with Ulster hurling. “Start with the kids.” “Get them young.” “Get the coaches into them.” “It’s going to take hard work and it’s going to take time.” About the most imaginative it got was to maybe let Antrim play in the Ulster minor championship.
Michael Duignan was particularly defeatist. “I think they’re wasting their time in a lot of the football counties,” he bluntly declared. “Forget about it — it’s not going to happen.”
Never in the course of the 20-minute discussion was the notion of a Team Ulster touted.
Thanks to Cusack, it was last Sunday night. While the idea was proposed by this writer over three years ago and given impetus by a GPA motion at their AGM last October, Cusack’s platform and conviction on The Sunday Game has triggered a proper discussion on what should be one of the most topical subjects in all the GAA: Is it truly serious about promoting the national game nationwide? When it comes to hurling, Ulster is a forgotten, unloved, abandoned child. Abused even.
For those who think the status quo should remain, that a Team Ulster would be an inconvenience and impractical, here’s a question for you: In the 50-year history of the All Ireland U21 series, how many times has an Ulster team won a game in it? Answer: None.
How many times has an Ulster minor team won in that competition’s All Ireland series? Answer: None.
Since the introduction of the All-Ireland quarter-final stage 16 years ago, the Ulster champions have been defeated on average by 3-19 to 1-8. At U21 level they meet a similar fate.
And yet the GAA hold onto the crazy notion that some group, some year, will be different and travel south to meet a different fate, ignorant or apathetic to the fact that they’re driving young fellas away from wanting to play for their counties at that level.
It doesn’t have to be this way though as a few enlightened Ulster hurling people realised. In the 1990s the Ulster colleges champions were routinely hammered in the All-Ireland series, on average by 2-18 to 0-5. Something had to change so something did. Ulster teams duly withdrew from the competition for the ’00s, only to return last year — as an Ulster combined colleges selection.
Trials were held. A panel was formed: 12 Antrim boys, 11 from Down, two apiece from Derry and Armagh and one from Tyrone. They trained throughout the winter, played a series of challenge games down south, hammering St Peter’s of Wexford, running the Kilkenny minors to a point.
With 20 minutes to go in their All-Ireland quarter-final they were seven points up against Connacht Mercys Colleges. A couple of errors on their part and the referee’s would see them eventually lose by a point. Players had to be dragged off the field. No one could speak on the bus. An Ulster team had expected to win.
Mattie Lennon from Armagh scored nine points. If he’s lucky, he might get to score that for his county in a Christy Ring Cup final while some of his opponents from Mercys get to play alongside Joe Canning in maroon.
As one of his team-mates put it: “Without the [combined colleges concept], I would never have got the chance to compete with the best from Kilkenny and Galway. The horrible thing is that I probably never will again. I’m 18.”
Hurling’s unique that way. While a six-year-old from the Ivory Coast can aspire to playing in the NBA or the Premier League if he’s good enough, a six-year-old from Cavan has to accept that just like a Mattie Lennon, he can never play at the highest level in hurling.
There is an alternative. A kid in Armagh could see a Paul McCormack from Keady make a Team Ulster and aspire to the same, just like the emergence of Alan Quinlan from Clanwilliam, Tipperary, allowed such rugby outposts feel at the heart of the Munster rugby experience. (Do you really think Irish rugby would have blossomed like it has if the ERC had confined its primary club competition to just, well, clubs?) We’ll say it again: While the county system has largely served football well, it has failed hurling outside Munster and pockets of Leinster.
Any potential downside or obstacle to the Team Ulster concept can be easily countered. Of course Team Ulster players could still play for their clubs and counties, with a bit of will and imaginative fixture-scheduling.
The other night Des Cahill asked Cusack could the GAA afford to cater for a provincial team working out of Belfast. The answer of course is that it cannot afford not to do something.
