New structure not ‘final answer’ to hurling problems
However, they abandoned such a strategy in favour of a three-tier All-Ireland championship which received the overwhelming support of delegates.
Ger Loughnane, one of the high-profile former managers on the committee, insisted later that there had been no "hidden agenda" to get rid of the provincial competitions at the end of the two-year experimental period.
With Cork Secretary Frank Murphy publicly questioning their intentions, Loughnane conceded later that while it 'might' have been on the agenda earlier on, it was never pursued.
"As we went on, we realised the place the provincial championships especially the Munster championship have in the hearts of the people. Why give away one of your greatest assets and replace it by something that may not be nearly as good as it," he commented.
Director-General Liam Mulvihill felt that Congress had dealt with the motion from the HDC and an opposing one from Cork in a sensible fashion. "The fact that they took the best and allowed the Cork proposals to be voted on against the proposals of the Task Force was a very fair way of doing it and very worthwhile.
"We have two years to see how it will work out. Time will tell whether it's for the betterment of the game or not," he added.
Loughnane believes that a balanced approach was central to their success.
"And, no better man than Pat Dunny, who did Trojan work to get this through," he noted. "Pat listened to all our wild suggestions and kept us debating until finally we came down to something that had a realistic chance of being passed.
"We had to keep the balance between something that might be idealistic and something that might have a realistic chance of being passed and that would make some difference to the weaker counties.
"There's no massive change at top tier. The real change and where the real hope is that in Tiers 2 and 3 it will give the players in those counties an incentive to improve.
"From all the players who came in from the weaker counties, the one thing they had in common was that they wanted more games during the summer. And, they wanted a day when they played in the big pitches, something they never get a chance of doing. This gives them some hope."
Dunny, the former Kildare dual star who chaired the Committee, expressed the view that the new structure would be of greatest benefit to the mid to lower range counties.
However, he advised delegates that it was not "the final answer" to hurling's problems.
Former Dublin manager Michael O'Grady felt that the Association had no reason to celebrate progress after eight years of experimentation. All the changes were merely 'steps' to something that would provide more teams with hurling during the summer months!
Ulster Secretary Danny Murphy warned the gap between the top ten counties and the bottom ten was widening and he urged that special consideration should be given to the needs of Antrim.
Ned Quinn, Chairman of the Kilkenny County Board (who had made known their opposition) criticised the HDC for attempting to "downplay" their achievement in winning the All-Ireland last year by suggestions that they had received a soft draw.
More pertinently, he expressed strong reservations about the ability of counties to organise their internal championships.
As expected, Congress strongly approved of the proposal to introduce a new senior football 'competition' for teams which fail to progress beyond the second round of the All-Ireland championship qualifier system.
This had been recommended by the Competitions Review task force under the chairmanship of Padraic Duffy.
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