O’Neill: Munster counties ‘swung’ provincial vote

GAA president Liam O’Neill admits the influence of Munster’s Liam MacCarthy Cup counties swung Saturday’s Central Council vote in favour of the Central Competitions Control Committee’s All-Ireland SHC proposal.

The recommendation to retain the Munster SHC in its current form was strongly favoured by the five counties compared to the Hurling Development Committee system, which was to play out the two provincial competitions on a home and away basis.

“The fact of the matter is, it would be a brave man that would dilute the Munster championship,” said O’Neill. “That’s what swung it in the end — the Munster counties were not going to allow that. That was the big change in the voting from the last time.”

O’Neill agreed the weaker hurling counties in Connacht and Ulster had taken their lead from Munster in what was an overwhelmingly majority victory for the CCCC proposal.

It will now form a motion and be voted on at Congress where it will be expected to pass and come into operation from 2014 for three years.

O’Neill said the presence of a Leinster qualifying group — two from Antrim, Carlow, Laois, London and Westmeath progressing to the provincial quarter-finals — will help the developing counties.

“They find themselves in an awkward position so it is now our combined duty to work the hurling development plan that was produced over the past few years to strengthen that group in between. They won’t all move to the MacCarthy Cup. At the moment, we appear to have a top 10 and the challenge now for us is to try to move to a top 12.”

O’Neill added: “That’s why we have to focus on the hurling plan, on the National Hurling and Camogie Centre in Waterford, it has to be on sharing expertise. We will give that centre to those counties for free for a period.

“The 10-year target is to have one of those that group (which also includes Kerry) reaching an All-Ireland quarter-final or semi-final.”

O’Neill also explained why Armagh have been prevented from streaming their Division 2 home games online. “The difficulty about streaming is, the expectations and demands of modern television is of the highest quality. We have to be mindful that any streaming done would have to be done in the context of best possible picture quality.”