Kerry club dominance exposes inequalities
The emotion on Nathan Breen’s face as he stood on the Hogan Stand podium on Saturday said it all. Looking down on his Beaufort team-mates, the joy of the captain who had moved to the home of his father after spending his first 13 years in Wales was unbridled.
A couple of hours later after their All-Ireland junior football success, there were similar scenes as their neighbours 15 kilometres up the road Kilcummin were celebrating their intermediate title. Former GAA president and club member Seán Kelly, who had championed the lower grade All-Irelands by bringing the finals to Croke Park 13 years ago, joined captain Brendan Kealy soon after the cup presentation.
Nine All-Ireland junior titles and two final appearances in 18 years and six All-Ireland intermediate crowns and two runners-up, Kerry’s dominance of the competitions is well known. The county have also produced 15 of the 18 Munster junior championships and 12 of the 16 provincial intermediates. If they were Dublin, there would be calls for them to split.
Speaking last week, Kelly admitted he never envisaged his county would be as successful as they have been but then he had imagined a day like Saturday for his club. “It was one of the things I was thinking of when I was putting forward those competitions,” he told the42.ie.
With just eight senior teams in Kerry, Kelly recognises it was easier for him to believe Kilcummin’s crowning moment would come than those from other counties where the senior ranks are bloated. Naomh Éanna, who they defeated, were effectively ranked 13th, just behind the 12 senior clubs in Antrim, four places behind where Kilcummin would be considered in the Kingdom. Is it any wonder Kerry have been so impervious in Munster when their best intermediate team is ranked ninth and Cork’s 20th in their county?
In his penultimate annual report as GAA director general in 2017, Páraic Duffy warned the integrity of the lower-grade All-Irelands was in danger because of the varying sizes of counties’ senior championships. “There is a wide disparity in the determination of what constitutes an intermediate or junior club,” he wrote. “The number of senior clubs in counties can vary from 10 (or lower) to 30 (or higher). Where there are 10 senior teams in a county, the intermediate winners, or the 11th-ranked club, will represent the county in the provincial intermediate championship.
“But where there are 30 senior teams, the intermediate winners representing the county in the provincial intermediate competition will be the 31st ranked club. Clearly, that gap will similarly be reflected in the junior provincial championship. It is, therefore, more likely that a county will be successful in the intermediate and junior grades if it has a small number of senior teams.
“Obviously, each county devises a club-grading system that best suits both its internal needs and the wishes of its clubs; in some counties that grading system will be more complex than just senior, intermediate, and junior. The problem is that the inconsistency in practice leads to great inequalities at provincial level; my concern is that, in the long term, this will diminish the appeal of the intermediate and junior competitions.”
Duffy was referring as much to Kerry as he was to the likes of Kilkenny whose senior hurling championship comprises 12 clubs in contrast to Cork’s which is made up of 18 clubs and eight divisional/college sides and Tipperary who now have 30 senior hurling clubs, two less than earlier this decade. Boasting 14 All-Ireland club titles below senior level, structure is as strong a reason as quality and tradition for Kilkenny clubs’ successes in the junior and intermediate grades.
What Kerry and Kilkenny do works for them and at senior level too where their streamlined formats are refining and engendering competition and rivalry. Cuala and Na Piarsaigh, winners of the last three All-Ireland SHCs, emerged from county championships involving 16 and 12 clubs respectively. Cork, remember, haven’t produced a senior All-Ireland hurling finalist in 13 years. Tipperary are waiting 25 years and counting. Tradition only gets you so far.
If provincial championships promotes the greatest inequality at inter-county level, what it does at club level is the determination of competition sizes. That other counties haven’t cottoned on to the Kerry and Kilkenny models is on them more so than the two pre-eminent counties. They can only beat what’s put in front of them. Obviously, their structures mightn’t work for everyone but so long as other senior championships remain swollen, their clubs will be starved of provincial and All-Ireland success.
That should also serve as a reminder to the inter-county football scene that not everyone is as equal as they think they are. Last week, Duffy’s successor Tom Ryan hailed the Allianz League as the GAA’s best competition but admitted the chances of it being transplanted into the Championship were “practically nil” and added the knockout element of the summer was “always going to be the way it is”.
Ryan is realistic but the reluctance to recognise polarisation of inter-county football is part of the reason it is being held back.
john.fogarty@examiner.ie
Banner deserve open draw in Munster
Clare’s third straight league win over Cork should compel the Banner County to put forward a motion to change the structure of the Munster senior football championship.
That they have now beaten them by an aggregate of 17 points in their last two meetings in Cusack Park should ensure the email calling for it has already reached the provincial council offices in Castletroy.
For all the discussion about the demise of a county who were only All-Ireland champions nine years ago, not enough respect was shown to Colm Collins’ side for their latest success against Cork. The form of evergreen David Tubridy has been magical, Gary Brennan remains a colossal figure in midfield and the dynamism of their half-back and forward lines has not dimmed.
Let’s face it, Clare would be genuine contenders for a Munster final this year were it not for them being drawing on the same side as Kerry for the fourth consecutive season, the fifth time in six years.
The look on Collins’ face in the RTÉ studios last October as they were once more presented with the reward of Kerry should they win their quarter-final said it all, but then his words later illustrated his exasperation: “The sky is not going to fall in if we get rid of the provincials.”
That it’s likely Tipperary who will have yet another chance to topple Cork to secure a final is harsh on Clare. An open draw mightn’t guarantee that Collins’ men avoid Kerry before the decider but their chances of doing so would be greater.
Right now, Cork don’t justify the bye received for reaching last year’s final.
Financial concerns that their absence from another one will hit the coffers should be allayed and offset by just how lucrative the provincial hurling championship has become. Besides, nothing seen of Cork since that 14-point defeat to Kerry in Páirc Uí Chaoimh last June is going to improve the 27,674 crowd that paid in to watch that annihilation.
GUBU alive, alive oh in Tralee
The behaviour of several Dublin and Kerry players after the final whistle on Tralee on Saturday is a matter for the GAA’s Central Competitions Control Committee this week but that of the managers and officials was just as bemusing.
After Jason Sherlock was punished for his involvement in an incident including players in the league game with Galway last year as was former Mayo manager Tony McEntee when facing the same opposition, Gavin was right to steer clear of the post-match melee.
However, what was most striking was his utter ignorance of it a mere few yards away from him. “I was interested in getting in out of the cold,” he quipped afterwards.
Seconds previously, Peter Keane had to quickly squash his broad smile that greeted the result when he was approached by Gavin for a handshake, but the biggest Kerry concession to Dublin came from Kerry PRO Leona Twiss in Gavin’s press conference afterwards. Following a series of questions about Sherlock and Diarmuid Connolly, she declared questions be kept related “to tonight’s game” on the insistence of Dublin media manager Seamus McCormack.
Kerry may indeed have won the game but on an enthralling if also bizarre night in Austin Stack Park, but they lost a couple of battles too.
