O’Connell calls for NHL to be scrapped
And, while he would be in favour of retaining the Munster hurling championship, it would be as an adjunct to the All-Ireland series and not an integral feature of it.
O’Connell was speaking at the launch of the Munster Championships in Lismore Castle yesterday and made the comments in response to a question about Clare being relegated from Division One of the Allianz League recently. “I don’t know how it will be any good for any of our young hurlers coming in for the first time and playing for Clare. I don’t know what value they will get, with no disrespect to those counties, playing in Division Two,’’ he commented.
“The league should be scrapped. We should take a Champions League approach to the championship.’’
O’Connell’s argument is that it is unfair on players to be training for so long and then to get so few top quality games.
“Rugby is one of our biggest competitors at the moment in terms of taking young people away from playing hurling,’’ he said.
“If we have more high profile games played in a league structure, you will have more young people going to games. What we need and what supporters want are quality games. Take one look at the attendances at this year’s league and that tells you everything. They were shocking bad.’’
O’Connell added: “The GAA has got to ask themselves the question do people want to go watching league games in the middle of February when it is pouring rain and fellows are playing in the muck?
“Look at the Premiership and they are able to turn out big performance in the space of a week. There is nothing to say we can’t do that.
“As it stands, if you lose a championship game you want to turn it around as quickly as you can and you could end up waiting a year before you play another game again. You should have the opportunity to turn games around in the space of a week in or two.’’
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