Hurling revamp raises questions

1 If you were interested, by which I mean worried, by the supremacy of Gaelic football, your worries are over, going by a first glance at the proposed hurling fixtures for 2018. There’ll be a lot more hurling games next year, but what does that mean, asks Michael Moynihan.

2 An earlier national hurling league, for instance, is likely to ask questions of teams’ strength and conditioning coaches. Are they going to train through to store up fitness for the travails of summer, and how will the Fitzgibbon Cup be managed?

That’s not even mentioning pre-season competitions like the Munster Senior Hurling League and the Walsh Cup: these have been part of the calendar along with the national league and colleges competitions for a while, but how will S&C coaches accommodate the huge increase in midsummer games?