Grant worried over All-Ireland SHC format

THE longest-serving county board secretary in the country is expressing major reservations about the format for the 2005 All-Ireland SHC.

In his report to tonight’s Waterford convention, Seamus Grant will say that he is concerned about the negative impact the restructuring will have on local county championships.

“One wonders if the experimental process is going a little too far,” he says, warning that the NHL and NFL are being devalued.

He criticises the decision to play off both leagues within a matter of months between February and May, describing it as “ludicrous in the extreme.”

“Playing the league games as a matter of convenience is not helping anyone, most of all the players, who still derive a great deal of satisfaction in representing their counties at this level,” he said.

“Surely it would be far better as in former years to play a couple of rounds of broadened and meaningful leagues in late autumn and bring the remaining rounds to fruition in the Spring.”

Mr Grant also believes that the current groupings in the football league are of no benefit for the weaker counties such as Waterford.

“The degree of travelling involved is colossal,” he said. “It imposes a huge financial burden on many counties, and serves little purpose in the long run.”

He refers specifically to last season’s league in which Waterford had to travel to Ulster on successive weekends with little or no hope of victory.

Paying tribute to the achievements of the senior hurlers in winning the Munster championship and reaching the league final, the secretary says it is with “immense pride and satisfaction that he salutes the winning of the provincial crown for the second time in three years.”

The Munster and All-Ireland victories of the junior footballers, he says, were also a source of great pride, and collectively these victories denote a county “very much on the move.”

“Significant progress was also achieved in other grades and there is now genuine optimism for the future,” he says.

With the outgoing vice-chairman, Pat Flynn of Passage, set to succeed Paddy Joe Ryan who is standing down from the chair after 10 years, there will be a vice-chairmanship contest involving Pat Grant of Fourmilewater and Dungarvan’s Paddy Fitzgerald.

The only other likely contest is for the position of Irish officer with the outgoing official, Seamas Ó hAonghusa (Mount Sion) being challenged by Donal O’Murchu (An Rinn).

With only five motions tabled, none of them contentious, it is likely to be one of the briefest conventions in many years.