Butler: we must adapt to progress

SLAUGHTER of the innocents. That’s how many people saw the early qualifier rounds of this year’s All-Ireland championship.

Galway against Antrim in round one, 6-21 to 1-10; Galway against Laois, Waterford against Antrim in round two, the two stronger sides with home advantage, David crushed by Goliath on the double. What’s to be done?

Paudie Butler is the National Hurling Co-ordinator, a straight-talking Tipperary-man with a deep and abiding love for the game and a member of the Hurling Development Committee, currently charged with coming up with new proposals to improve the current structures. Here’s his own vision for the future.

“We in the GAA are hung up on knocking teams out – how do you promote hurling like that? The two just don’t mix. You have two worlds, the realistic, the unrealistic – we have to be realistic.

“You can’t promote hurling with knockout competition, but too many people are still hung up on that. Everyone should accept that huge gaps exist between the top and the bottom. The quality at the top level is higher than it ever was in the history of the game, as far as I can see, and as things stand there’s very little chance for those on the second tier to catch up with those on the top.

“What we’re hoping is that everyone will accept where they are right now and play for the right to get to the next level. If we can upgrade the Christy Ring to satisfy the likes of Antrim, Laois, Westmeath, Down, Carlow and the rest, then structure it so that the two finalists get to play in the MacCarthy Cup at the qualifier stage, they will be coming in on a high, after a good run of competitive games.”

The way to structure that new competition?

“What I’d like to see is a system where there are way more hurling games. For 125 years you had a system where some counties got only one championship match a year, winning the odd game here and there, and all those counties accepted that, no-one saw anything wrong with it.

“Then you had the system where teams got a second chance, and last year you had a team getting a third chance (Cork lost two games, then nearly beat Waterford in the All-Ireland quarter-final) and there was an outcry, and we’re back to knock-out in the qualifiers again. I’d like to see a system in Munster where every team got two home matches in a four-game round-robin competition, the top two to qualify for the Munster final.

“I’d have the same system in Leinster, with Galway included – Kilkenny, Dublin, Wexford, Offaly, Galway, all with two home matches, the top two qualifying for the Leinster final. The top two teams would play in the provincial finals, the winners going to the All-Ireland semi-finals as at present, the losers to the quarter-finals.

“Meanwhile the Christy Ring competition would be going on, the likes of Antrim, Laois, Westmeath, Kerry, Carlow, Down and all those. The top two there would enter the All-Ireland series against the third-placed teams in Munster and Leinster, the winners going on from there to the All-Ireland quarter-finals, every game played to a conclusion, no draws.”

What of a relegation/promotion system. Necessary, surely?

“There would have to be, yes, but that’s very complex.” One possible scenario would see the Christy Ring winner play the loser of a play-off game between fifth-placed teams in Munster and Leinster, and if the Christy Ring team won it would take the place of that team in either Munster or Leinster, the loser then relegated to the Christy Ring.

“If we’re going to invest our money in development, we have to allow room for development, you can’t hold teams in the Christy Ring forever, they have to improve.”

Could the number of teams in Munster and Leinster be expanded, eventually?

“Absolutely, that’s the ultimate aim here, to expand the number of teams capable of competing for the Liam MacCarthy. That would be fantastic, wouldn’t it? But we have to accept this year’s facts and figures, last year’s facts and figures, that all the one-sided matches are not helpful in the promotion of the game.

“Under this system every team would have at least four matches at the round-robin stage, with more to follow — All-Ireland qualifiers or relegation — and every game would matter. You have the added advantage that you can plan your season from start to finish, and with a definite schedule the clubs would be fully accommodated.”

And that, says Paudie, would be the real bonus of these proposals.

“You need inter-county hurling to promote hurling, but inter-county hurling isn’t the basis of hurling, club hurling is. We have to factor club hurling into our overall calendar for the year; the present system is so random that no-one can plan their season.

“We’re slipping into an era where winning at the top level has become everything — we must step back from that, that’s a professional outlook, doesn’t fit the GAA at all. People are playing hurling now from choice; in our day — and whatever regard we have for ourselves — we didn’t necessarily play from choice, we played because it was the only game in town.

“Anyone playing hurling now is doing so from choice; we have a duty to provide a good programme of games to those players, to reward that choice, because the dedication of the modern club player is phenomenal. I know boys who have trained 100 times for one game, who have travelled thousands of miles between them, all finished after one game. That kind of dedication has to be rewarded, that has to be factored in.”

But what if counties didn’t play club games in the ‘down time’ from the inter-county scene – will they be mandated to do so?

“I think it might come to that, yes. We know now from the statistics that there is far too little club hurling.

“In the old days a lot of club hurling was done in tournaments and in field openings and that made up for a deficit in championship hurling, when you had the knockout system, and a lot of people really enjoyed those tournaments, they were brilliant because they just gave sheer enjoyment to the players – trophies, local bragging rights. That’s all gone.”

Structures apart, there’s another thorny issue Paudie would like to see resolved, finally.

“The other big consideration we’re putting through is to reduce minor to U-17, U-21 to U-20, and nobody can play more than one grade. Good players playing at different levels is creating a crisis in the GAA, and that has to be addressed.

“That proposal should go hand in hand with the other one, people have to bite the bullet. There’s a huge number of games postponed because a very talented player is involved with a number of teams at club and county level — that is causing chaos in the club scene. A club hurling match postponed just because there’s one player who may be involved with the county at minor or U-21 level, is a travesty of what the GAA is about. You don’t have that in any other sport, because it can’t be done, and they’ve accepted that years ago; no matter what happens, their games go ahead.

“We have a culture of postponement and putting off and re-fixing; our boys don’t know if they can go on holidays, when they can plan a wedding, there are problems around exam time – it’s an intolerable situation. There are hard decisions to be made but we can’t be complaining, then be unwilling to make the changes necessary. Something has to give.

“We have boys who are playing with up to 12 teams in one year – that’s wrong. There are young boys going over to England to play professional soccer, professional rugby, and they don’t play half the games that our boys play. We need to wake up, the burnout report is there for everyone to read, it has to be accepted that we’re doing damage to our best young players. The evidence is there, we can not turn our back on it anymore.

“Hard choices, but if we want to go forward, if we want to create a fixed calendar of games for all our players, something has to give. The GAA is about the whole community, it’s about pride of place, it’s not about the adulation of one person, no matter how talented. To me, that’s not Irish, that’s not our psyche, that’s not the way GAA was designed; this just all happened by accident, we were sleep-walking when we allowed that to happen.

“We weren’t thinking, we weren’t planning; what I’d like to see now is that every future club hurler in Ireland can look at the season coming up and know he’s going to get at least 20 games.”

Meaningful games?

“At least a dozen meaningful games anyway. A hundred training-sessions for one or two games – just doesn’t make sense. It’s not healthy first of all, by any definition. We need to take a radical look at ourselves, go back to Hayes Hotel where we were founded, go back to why we were founded.

“We’re about family, we’re about community, we’re about pride in our local place, and we need to be playing hurling. I do think the time is coming when people will recognise that change is necessary.”