Butler unfazed at defeat as Laois strive for glory
“Lookit, Michael Delaney wants people to discuss the state of hurling, and he’s right”, the Tipperary-man reckoned. “If things are left the way they are, they won’t improve. From our point of view, it’s up to us to prove him wrong”.
Flying a kite then, but Butler does agree with the Leinster secretary that something is rotten in the state of hurling: “Democracy has its values, but someone has to give leadership on this, grab the bull by horns. The likes of Laois, Kerry, those on the fringe, do have problems. Dinny (Cahill, another Tipp-man) has done it with Antrim, pulled them in, but the big advantage he has is that Antrim can win an Ulster championship, whereas for us to win a Leinster, or for Kerry to win a Munster, just to get our confidence going, is a tall order”.
Butler’s frustration with the powers-that-be in hurling is understandable. Almost since the foundation of the association, the All-Ireland championship has been dominated by the big three of Cork, Kilkenny and Tipperary, with others getting just an occasional look-in. In fact hurling was probably healthier, certainly more widespread, in those early days of the association than it is today.
Kerry won a senior hurling All-Ireland 12 years before their first football success, while Dublin, Limerick, Wexford, Clare, London, and Laois themselves, all won senior hurling titles before the 1916 rising. What’s needed, reckons the newly-appointed manager, is another revolution.
“What we’d like to see done is to have 12 or 14 teams in the All-Ireland championship, played in groups a bit like the Champions League, so that we’re guaranteed a few hot summer matches, and you know whether you’re improving or not”.
Champions League? The GAA borrow an idea from soccer? Perish the thought. For the foreseeable future, the weaker hurling counties such as were mentioned by Michael Delaney will continue to be sacrificed on the high altar of the provincial championships, the sacred cash cows of the GAA.
The new All-Ireland qualifier series, while ostensibly there to give everyone a second chance, in reality will merely serve to make the strong stronger, the weak weaker. The likes of Cork, Tipp or Kilkenny are far less likely to be beaten twice in the same championship season than Laois or Dublin. A transfer system is something else hurling could borrow from soccer, but the Laois manager has his fears.
“That was always there anyway”, he claims, “but it’s always the weak counties that will suffer, they’re the ones going to lose their best players, if there is a transfer system. Kilkenny lads aren’t going to come to Laois, are they? There will be cherry-picking, because everyone wants to win an All-Ireland, don’t they?”
It would have to be limited then, strictly controlled, one-way traffic from the strong to the weak. Those distractions apart, Paudie Butler has his hands full in trying to make progress with his team this year, and he didn’t seem at all fazed by Saturday’s result. “We know what he have to do, our eyes are open, and for 20 minutes of this match we were fine. Now if we can go half an hour the next day, get to half-time without being under undue pressure, we’ll have learned. Waterford in Portlaoise next, Kilkenny in Portlaoise, Dublin away, Galway back in Portlaoise. No hiding in any of those games, but we have to learn”.
Meanwhile, Clare manager Cyril Lyons reckons strong performances from the new faces in his side will have put some of the older guard, all of whom were in the stand, on alert.
“They’re training like mad, but sure that’s the way they are, they know no different. It’s good for them to see that there are new lads coming through, that we can win a league game without having to play our most experienced 15. Good for the new fellas as well, but you know a lot of these lads were on the panel last year and never got a chance, so we said to them before Christmas, ye’ll get ye’re chance. They did okay today, but then again, first round of league, and all we wanted to do was win the match.
