Alarm bells Ring for ‘weaker’ counties

AS long as anyone can recall, the weaker teams at hurling’s top table have been crying out for more summer games with which to hone their skills and close the gap on the Corks and Kilkennys.

It’s more than a little ironic, then, that Offaly will meet Antrim and Laois will take on Dublin tomorrow with all four praying it will be their last game of the season.

The losers from each tie will be only 70 minutes away from relegation and the chilling prospect of not competing for the Liam McCarthy Cup next year.

The one plus point is that the prospect of spending next summer hurling in the Christy Ring Cup has had a wonderful effect on concentrating peoples’ minds.

Both Laois and Dublin have suffered serious player drain in the past whenever their provincial championships hopes went up in smoke. This year the number of players opting to cut loose to the States or elsewhere can be counted on one hand.

“It can be hard to keep lads motivated when they go out of the championship proper but we haven’t been too bad this year,” said Laois hurling board chairman Donal Deegan.

“Relegation seems to have concentrated peoples’ minds and the team has worked very hard.”

Deegan is actually miffed that Laois find themselves in action at all this weekend, claiming only the bottom teams from each group should have progressed to a straight do-or-die play-off.

“It’s a bad system. We beat Antrim in the last round and it hardly counts for anything. We’ve won two matches, been competitive in every game and we still find ourselves in a position where, if we lose two matches now, we could find ourselves relegated next season.”

It’s a sentiment that has found much empathy across the border in Offaly. Last year, Mike McNamara’s team missed out on the league play-offs on points difference yet they still found themselves relegated to Division Two after a disastrous second phase.

Despite their own troubles, Offaly will be expected to avoid the final ‘Game of Death’ by accounting for Antrim in Croke Park tomorrow. The Glensmen have endured an horrific season with Dinny Cahill’s resignation coming in the wake of some miserable defeats.

“We’re well up for it. I don’t know what it is but everybody seems way more relaxed this week, like the pressure is off,” said Antrim captain Jim Connolly. “The craic is back in training but this season has gone on the way it has way too long. We need a bloody win at this stage.”

Whoever makes the drop should return to the top grade straight away but even then the seeds for further problems may already have been sown.

“It would be a disaster if we went down, even if I’ve no doubt that we would bounce straight back up,” said Connolly. “Down are running away with the Christy Ring this year and we’re a better team than Down.

“The worry is that you’d be playing at a far slower pace for a year. When you come back up you’d be so far off the pace that it would be even harder to stay up. Your ability to hurl with the top teams would be seriously hurt by that year playing in the Christy Ring.”

Different teams are dealing with the weight hanging over their heads in different ways. Where Antrim are laughing in the face of adversity, Dublin seem to be avoiding the ‘R’ word at all costs.

“Relegation? To be honest, we haven’t really discussed it,” said Dublin manager Tommy Naughton. “It hasn’t crossed my mind.”

Whoever slips down the drain on August 6, the problems for all four counties remain. Next year, the same teams will be facing the same grim scenario, so how do they go about making their way up the ladder?

“We have to learn to win matches,” explained Deegan, speaking for his own county. “We’ve been performing well but losing games because of a lack of belief in ourselves. We lost by nine points to Limerick but could have and maybe should have beaten them.

“Simple mistakes are costing us badly. It was the same with the minors in the Leinster semi-final against Wexford. Simple mistakes. Coaching is vitally important but so is that element of self-belief.”