Cooney happy for open draw debate

GAA President Christy Cooney isamenable to a debate on the feasibility of an open draw in the All-Ireland senior hurling championship.

While there have been calls for the provincial championships to be abandoned in favour of an open draw – most notably from Kilkenny manger Brian Cody – Cooney insists that his travels around the country over the past six months indicate that nobody ‘is pushing an agenda’ to change.

“I want to get to the situation where, at next year’s Congress, we’ll have a roadmap for the development of hurling and a structure for our championships that will stand the test of time,’’ he said after Saturday’s Special Congress which agreed the adjustment which will permit Carlow to play in the Leinster championship next year.

“We cannot be repeating and changing the structure year in, year out. It’s not in anybody’s interest.’’

With Leinster chairman Seamus Howlin arguing that it would be ‘a disaster’ for the GAA to do away with provincial councils, the GAA boss said it was clear that the hierarchy in the provinces were ‘certainly’ not looking for change and were ‘quite consistent’ in saying they want the provincial championships to remain as they are.

Cooney said: “There have been soundings over the last number of weeks and comments from interested parties that it’s time to look at an open draw for the hurling championship.

“But, if we look at open draw for hurling do we look at an open draw in football? I don’t know, but if it comes from counties that we should look at the format of our hurling championship we will look at it. That’s not to say it’ll change, but if people want to raise it as an issue, it will be part of our discussions.

“Maybe it will come on the agenda, and it’s certainly an option we should consider discussing.’’

Howlin said that while ‘his mind would be as open to change’ as anybody’s, he couldn’t be convinced that introducing an open draw would be ‘the right thing’ for the Association.

“There is much more to provincial councils than just the senior hurling and football championships. To do away with provincial councils would be a disaster for the GAA,’’ he commented. “I don’t think that playing the games in an open draw is going to make it any better. We have problem with different standards but we’ll always have that.’’

Munster chairman Jimmy O’Gorman said: “We need to stand up and make a clear statement on our contribution, not alone to hurling by having the provincial championship, but also to the help we are giving to clubs, the money we are generating, the (coaching) people we are putting in place.

“I have no doubt that at the end of the year our income from all resources will come to about €9m and yet our books will show a profit of no more than three or four hundred thousand. All that money will go out in one way or another towards helping and promoting our games. If we lose our provincial championships, I would have a big fear for the clubs.’’

Taking account of the huge amount of work in areas of coaching and games development, funding and promotion that is undertaken by the provincial councils, Cooney said it was easy to understand why they would have such strong concerns about the introduction of an open draw.

“Naturally, there would be a fear among the provinces that if the whole championship was taken over by Croke Park, would they get the same slice of the cake! And, added to that there are major decisions to be made about the role and function of provincial councils, because if they don’t run their championships, what is their function?’’

One of the Kilkenny delegates at Saturday’s gathering was the Kilkenny secretary Ned Quinn (former chairman of the now defunct Hurling Development Committee (HDC).

He was a lone voice at last April’s Congress in Cork when he warned of the consequences of passing the Westmeath motion which allowed the Christy Ring Cup winners to be promoted to the Liam MacCarthy Cup.

From the time of the introduction of the ‘back door’ in 1997, he pointed out it was accepted that instead of having ‘automatic’ promotion and relegation, it made more sense for the winners of the Christy Ring to play the team deemed to be the bottom team in the MacCarthy Cup.

“That was included in the motion that brought Galway and Antrim into Leinster, which was for a three-year period, after which everything would have been up for review. I still maintain that would have been the preferred option – that we should have completed the three-year cycle and then reviewed everything.’’

In Quinn’s view, there ‘is’ a momentum building up for change in terms of ‘eliminating’ the provincial championships.

“This is a subject the GAA now has to seriously discuss – whether we are actually going to continue with a provincial championship or not. Of all the issues we are facing, I believe this is number one now and we should be seriously investigating what the consequences of removing the Munster and Leinster championship would be.

“Because once they are removed they can never be put back.”