No reason for ending U20 provincial hurling, insists Munster chief Leddy
Munster GAA secretary Kieran Leddy says there is no justification to remove the provincial U20 hurling championships.
The recommendation is part of the fixtures review taskforce’s report and while Leddy welcomed their work as a whole, he doesn’t believe doing away with the competitions will assist the club scene.
In his annual report to the Munster Convention, which is set to take place this Friday, Leddy writes: “It is difficult to see the value of the proposal to remove the Provincial U20 Hurling Championship in terms of Club fixtures, as the current format can be completed in four dates by removing the All Ireland Semi Finals.
The provincial competitions at this grade have provided many fine games and occasions over the years, and are still a favourite with the public and players alike.
Leddy revealed the taskforce chose not to accept the province’s idea of establishing block periods for the county and club championship fixtures.
“The Munster Council Management Committee submission to the Task Force recommended a split Championship season, with Inter County Championships taking place in May, June and July, and Club Championships taking place in August, September and October, with July also available to counties knocked out early from Inter County Championship action.
“Club Leagues and challenge games would be played in April through to July, meaning each player would have a league/challenge game programme from April to July and a Championship programme from August to October. Inter-County Players would not be moving back and forth from one coaching set-up to another and clubs would have their players for an entire championship block of two to three months.
“The Task Force was not in favour of this approach and instead favours a number of options, including ‘split windows’, whereby club championship activity is split over multiple windows, or Spring and September/October windows. I respect the views of the Taskforce as they had to consider numerous submissions and inputs from various stakeholders.”
Leddy knows compromise will be the name of the game when the GAA come to vote on the three All-Ireland senior football championship proposals put forward by the task-force, something that is now likely to happen at a Special Congress in September.
“They have put forward three proposals on the structure of the Inter County Football Championships, including retaining the status quo, redrawing the Provincial Football Championship structure to see eight counties per competition, and moving the Provincial Championships to the spring-time, thus decoupling them from an All-Ireland league style Championship. Certainly, the latter will effectively see the end of Provincial Championship structure as we know it, as the competitions will essentially become warm-up competitions.
“The key now is that we take the decisions as an Association that we need to take in order to improve the Fixture Programme for the Club player and reduce the burden on the elite player. All parties to the debate must accept that because of the nature of the Association, it is going to be very difficult to deliver the ‘silver bullet solution’ and so, compromises will be needed.
"All discussion on the best Championship format needs to take place in the context of the positive impact the proposed change will have on the schedule of the club and elite player. It should also be remembered that while the Munster Senior Football Championship has lived in the shadow of its hurling counterpart, Ulster and Connacht Football Championships are very competitive, both having had three different winners in the last five years.”
Meanwhile, Leddy revealed the Munster SHC gate receipts last year made up almost half of the €9m-plus income the provincial council took in during 2019. Income for the Munster SFC fell from €910,555 in 2018 to €549,128 last year.
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