Tipp clubs to consider championship changes
He found the coach’s insight intriguing, and took O’Shea’s warning - “If you try to do the same thing as winners, you’ll probably end up second all the time” - on board.
O’Shea wasn’t specifically talking about Tipperary but Costigan felt his words could be adapted to the county.
“What he was saying was if a team is static we are already behind and that’s something Tipperary have to consider,” Costigan, the county’s Central Council delegate, said.
It’s for that reason he and his JK Brackens club have put forward one of three motions to alter the structure of the county senior hurling championship, which will be voted on at the County Board’s first monthly meeting of 2011 on Tuesday.
Delegates will hear proposals from Costigan’s club as well as that of the county’s Central Competitions Committee, headed up by vice-chairman Seán Nugent, and the third motion drafter, Roscrea’s Hugh McDonnell.
While Brackens propose the formation of two divisions of 16 each split into four groups of four for the 2012 championship based on how teams finished in the 2011 competition, the CCC recommend linking a club’s performance in their division — North, South, West or Mid — with their entry point to the county championship.
“Following winning the All-Ireland in 2001, we slipped back,” Costigan explained. “Right now, we are going well in most areas, especially at under-age and third level, but the one area where we can improve on, and where Kilkenny have had an advantage on us, is the county championship You saw Thurles Sarsfields winning a Tipp championship last year but when it came to the Munster final, that required bit extra wasn’t there.
“The intensity that our championship needs isn’t there. In years gone by, the club championship was where you’d pick the respective county players. That’s not the case now.”
Nugent is in agreement that the championship has to become more competitive. “With this motion, the championship is run on a more simplified format. Divisional runners-ups enter the championship at a later stage than divisional semi-final losers.”
Relegation is likely to be reintroduced with the CCC motion stating the Seamus Ó Riain Cup be used to decide which team is demoted to intermediate level.
“The teams that lose the first round of the Seamus Ó Riain Cup will play off for relegation,” Nugent added. “The team that is relegated hasn’t won the first round of their divisional or county championship or the Seamus Ó Riain, so they would almost be deserving of relegation as they’d have failed to win a single game.”
