Perennial one-horse race is doing Leinster hurling no favours
Why? Because I’ve been here before so many times over the last few years, because I’ve seen the senior hurling scene in Leinster become less and less competitive over the last few years, because I’ve already asked all the questions I can think of, because I don’t believe the Leinster championship as it stands is viable anymore, because I think the whole championship setup needs revamping.
Brian did his best, pointing out – correctly – that Offaly had been competitive for most of the first half. Just before the break, however, Kilkenny got in for a typical Kilkenny goal, and the game ended.
Contrast that with the Munster semi-final between Tipp and Cork a couple of weeks ago; Tipp were behind by seven points with ten minutes to go in the first-half – was the game over? Did they quit? Did they hell.
They hate this in Leinster, this comparison between the matches in the provinces, the comparison between the atmosphere at a Munster championship match and Leinster championship. Less than 17,000 of a combined attendance at the two Leinster semi-finals, Dublin/Wexford in Kilkenny on Saturday drawing 8,639, Portlaoise failing to match even that paltry figure, 8,151 the announced attendance.
Down south, the Tipp-Cork clash had 42,823, while there were rumblings of disappointment that Clare-Waterford could only bring a mere 17,365 to the Gaelic Grounds in Limerick, in what was a first-round Munster clash. Stark contrast, surely.
What of the fare on offer? While Dublin/Wexford ended up as a competitive game, both sides happy enough with a draw, the standard of hurling was not good, the finishing especially.
Wexford were atrocious in the first half, too much nervous tension. All the criticism they’ve shipped over the last few years taking its toll; Dublin were better in that period but like Wexford, their shooting too was pretty abysmal.
It picked up in the second half, once Wexford settled down, and both sides played some good hurling, but it was still lacking the kind of intensity that’s accepted as a given in Munster.
In Portlaoise, having shipped that goal just before half-time, a young Offaly side was overwhelmed by the Kilkenny machine - another mismatch, another hammering, the existing order reinforced.
Despite what Cody – almost as proud of being from Leinster as from Kilkenny — may say, the Leinster championship is a lost cause, the outcome perennially almost a foregone conclusion. Kilkenny have to be on their guard, and any of Offaly, Wexford or Dublin would punish complacency, but how likely is that to happen under Cody’s watch?
Year after year the All-Ireland championship is revisited, a tweak here, a tweak there, when what is needed is major surgery. On Sunday Antrim won yet another in a stream of Ulster titles – did anyone outside of Antrim give a damn?
I have huge respect for what’s being done to keep hurling alive in Ulster, but Antrim, the best team in the province, will be seen next time out as mere fodder for Galway, then likewise the week after that for Waterford. Who’s going to go to those games? What’s being done to help that situation? Not a damned thing.
It’s a bust, this Leinster championship, and I get absolutely no pleasure from saying that. Next Sunday, tens of thousands will throng Thurles for Clare/Limerick, the second Munster semi-final – despite the fact that there’s a good match in prospect, how many would be in Croke Park just for the Wexford/Dublin replay?
With the Wexford senior footballers playing Laois in the football championship the same day there’s bound to be a half-decent crowd, but how many for the hurling? It’s a complete and utter nonsense, this current championship setup, an imbalance in competitiveness within the two provinces that has now gone way beyond the acceptable. And yet, inexplicably, we continue with it.
diarmuid.oflynn@examiner.ie
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