Rewarding a flawed structure
Serve up scores and we’ll declare the fare is brilliant.
The hurling league has generally been painted as a success because yet again there were no dead rubbers in Division 1A.
Because there’s been more scored in the top flight than any of the previous five seasons and possibly beyond.
That fails to mention the average winning/losing margin between teams, a more accurate barometer of competition, grew to six points this year, more in any of the three past seasons including 2011, the last year of the eight-team Division 1.
The disparity between the level of rivalry in Division 1A and Division 1 isn’t as large as fans of the current system would like to believe. But, no, we’re constantly told (and falling for) the impression the league is working.
Over the weekend, it was argued the structure was fine because Division 1A went to the wire on the final day for the second year in a row. But what do you expect when six able and hungry dogs are put in a pen?
With so few games, it is difficult for any one team, even Clare or Kilkenny, to break from the pack. Factor in those five fixtures are over a six-week period and the task of winning each of them is even harder.
Teams have to taper their preparations and target games, predominantly their home ones. It’s little wonder 13 of the 15 ties were won by those playing on their own patch.
Is it any great surprise, then, that three of the four Division 1A quarter-final teams had three home games in this campaign compared to relegation play-off teams, Dublin and Waterford, who both had one less?
In 2012, the first year of the six-team top flight, it was the same when Dublin and Galway had only two home fixtures.
The structure, some might say, is a great leveller as it prevents teams from going gung-ho in every game but such an arbitrary dynamic shouldn’t dictate how teams go about their business. The condensed round campaign that places a handicap on each of them might present more final day permutations but is it all that healthy? On the flip side, it might be argued the strongest will invariably prosper, but then Clare belied that when they went onto win an All-Ireland title, having finished bottom of Division 1A.
Division 1A at least is not as trustworthy an indicator of summer fortunes as it used to be, and yet Clare and Cork last year finished on four points, just one behind Galway, who made the semi-finals. As if those margins weren’t tight, this year Dublin and Waterford face relegation play-offs because of “total scores for” in Dublin’s case, and in Waterford’s case score difference.
Both of them, like Tipperary, picked up four points. They too, like Tipperary, won just two of their five games yet it is sufficient enough for Tipperary to reach the quarter-finals.
Because the drop to Division 1B is feared — none from that group has yet to reach an All-Ireland final — Anthony Daly is correct when he says there is more at stake in the relegation game than the quarter-finals.
That, in itself, is an anomaly when there should be more interest in the knockout stages. But when a developing side like Laois are rewarded with a knockout spot in a quarter-final for finishing fourth in Division 1B, six rungs lower in the ladder than Dublin and five below Waterford, that’s what happens?
GAA director general Páraic Duffy afforded Central Council a way out of it but this is the format they opted to go with and, worse still, it could be here for another couple of years.
Waterford and Dublin are now in a position where Sunday’s game will be their last for eight and 11 weeks respectively. Whoever loses between Galway and Limerick will be without competitive hurling for nine weeks.
Should Cork lose to Tipp, they’re twiddling their thumbs for eight weeks; should Tipperary be defeated they’re out for nine. And this league is supposed to promote hurling?
But watch it: the misconceptions about the league structure will be fuelled by the strong crowd figures attending games. Across three Division 1A fixtures on Sunday, there were more than 22,000 in attendance.
Considering it could be the last occasion Clare and Kilkenny supporters might have seen their players in action at home this year, the crowd numbers around the 9,000 mark in Cusack and Nowlan Park were understandable. It’s time we took off the blinkers: the hurling league is a situation where in terms of quality and betterment of the game less most definitely doesn’t mean more.
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After all the commotion, Central Council revealed on Saturday not only will the ‘Anthony Nash motion’ be delayed by a year but so too will the introduction of the clock/hooter to championship football and hurling.
The pertinent question in both cases is why, and the answer in each is identical: somebody clearly dropped the ball.
The wording of the original Nash motion was flawed in that it would have applied to all frees and sidelines, not just penalties and 20m frees.
Why, despite reservations about this prior to Congress, wasn’t it amended? A trial of the clock/hooter on the Sigerson and Fitzgibbon weekends revealed substitutes were being used to run down the clock.
Why did it take a trial run in the Sigerson/Fitzgibbon weekends to realise that when it was blatantly obvious it would happen as replacements aren’t deemed stoppages.
Yes, the ball was definitely dropped but one must wonder, given the warning signs had been shining big and bright in both situations, whether the exact reason for the spills was simply ignorance, or something else.
Something strike you as unusual about Antrim turning up late for their clash with Offaly at Tullamore on Sunday? Yeah, the same thought crossed our minds too.
With nothing to play for as the sides were already set to meet again in Ballycastle in a Division 1B relegation play-off on Sunday, the game might as well have been classed null and void. Antrim’s contempt for the fixture was more than obvious, with manager Kevin Ryan quoted as saying he thought the game had a 3pm throw-in rather than the scheduled 2pm start.
He might have but the entire Antrim contingent? Machiavelli would have blushed.
