Daly hails success of new league format

GAA head of games Pat Daly has hailed the new hurling league format, although he doesn’t rule out changes to it in the near future.

Following on from director general Páraic Duffy’s praise of it last week, Daly believes it has worked well and increased competition. Dublin and Galway face each other in a relegation play-off this Sunday and Daly expects a real edge to the game.

However, there are opponents of the new structure. Despite earning promotion to Division 1A on Saturday, Clare manager Davy Fitzgerald argued the top-flight should be increased from six to 10 teams. But Daly believes the system, initially devised by the Hurling Development Committee (HDC), has proved successful.

“It’s been an excellent competition. The HDC set out to try and keep 12 teams competitive at the top tier and possibly try and increase that,” he said.

“I don’t know how things will look in 12 months’ time but when you look at Division 1A and 1B, there have been competitive games.

“You can never talk about absolutes in the GAA. Things tend to change. Some people would claim we change things too much and yet the GAA has been indicted for not changing enough.”

This year has seen Division 1 transform into two groups of sixes from last year’s eight-team divisional structure.

“We’ve had the eights, the sixes and now the tiered sixes, which has proven to be the best of the three options,” said Daly. “With eight teams, they tended to give you a lopsided impression of the league.

“Counties outside the top tier — let’s say there are four of them — were being disenfranchised. They needed opposition with meaningful games. Had the leagues remained the same as last year, there would have been the scenario where Wicklow were playing the likes of Clare in Division 2.

“Wicklow were in the Christy Ring Cup last year but they would not have had meaningful games or effective preparation for this year’s Christy Ring Cup playing the likes of Clare.”

Daly believes criticism of the current league format can be countered. He doesn’t buy into the idea the competition should be a playground for experimentation.

“It’s been said there is no room for experimenting in the leagues but surely that should be done in the provincial competitions at the start of the season?

“It’s important that the league isn’t treated shabbily. It’s the second most important competition in hurling but it shouldn’t be treated in a secondary way.”

Another dig levelled at the current league is the drop in Division 1A and 1B games from seven for each team to five and what impact that has on the promotion of hurling. For Daly, though, it’s a question of quality over quantity.

“It comes down to competitive games and that is the kernel of the issue. You can have all the games you like but if they’re not competitive, you’re not going anywhere.

“The critical thing is to have games of substance and that is what the league right now is offering. The general consensus now is you can’t afford to lose a game.”

Meanwhile, Daly is confident the Hawk-Eye score detection technology will be ready for its scheduled Croke Park debut in June.

“We’re working away in the background on it at the moment and we have a conference call [with Hawk-Eye] organised for next week.

“There are a lot of aspects to the technology and we have to pin all of that down.

“We’re come to the end of that process now and I’m satisfied, come June, we should be in a position to have it set up.”