Larry McCarthy has high hopes for Tailteann Cup success

16 May 2022; In attendance at the launch of the 2022 Táilteann Cup, at Croke Park in Dublin, are back row, from left, Kevin Maguire of Westmeath, Evan O’Carroll of Laois, Darragh Foley of Carlow, Niall Murphy of Sligo, Teddy Doyle of Tipperary, Killian Clarke of Cavan, Mark Diffley of Leitrim, Dean Heal of Wicklow, Conor Stewart of Antrim. Front row, from left, Mickey Quinn of Longford, Martin O’Connor of Wexford, Conor Murray of Waterford, Uachtarán Chumann Lúthchleas Gael Larry McCarthy, Declan McCusker of Fermanagh, Johnny Moloney of Offaly and Barry O’Hagan of Down. Photo by Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile

GAA President Larry McCarthy claims counties like Waterford can realistically take football's new Tailteann Cup 'by the scruff of the neck and march through the summer'.

Speaking at the launch of the inaugural competition for Division 3 and 4 teams who didn't reach their provincial finals, McCarthy admitted it was a 'relief' to finally get it up and running.

Waterford will be involved in the first ever Tailteann Cup game this Saturday when they travel to play Wicklow in Aughrim at 3pm. Wexford will play Offaly in the second preliminary round game the following afternoon in Enniscorthy at 2pm.

A dozen other counties will begin at the Round 1 stage of the regionalised competition the following weekend, including 2020 Munster champions Tipperary who will play Carlow and 2020 Ulster champions Cavan who will face Down.

"We've had the tiered approach in hurling for years and now we're going to try it in football and I've no doubt it will be as successful," said McCarthy. "The draw has put teams of equitable standard together and there's potential for some team to grab this by the scruff of the neck and march through the summer and have a great summer with it. But if they were still with the qualifiers, it could have been, for instance, Waterford being pulled out against Mayo. That would have been demoralising for Waterford on one level.

"So it's the fact that it's become tiered, that it's become like the league to a certain extent, because everyone says the league is a very good competition. It's our secondary competition. But that gives me a confidence about the whole thing and I think playing in high summer as well, that's going to excite people."

McCarthy defended the decision to go with a regionalised competition, as opposed to an all-island open draw.

"That's an argument but there's also an argument of reigniting local rivalries," he said. "And so as a result of the draw, you now have Down and Cavan. You have Wexford and Offaly coming back to have a second tilt at each other.

"Repeat pairings, yeah, but there's an excitement in it. The alternative might, for example, and I'll take Waterford again as an example, that they might have to travel to Sligo. Would that excite anybody?

"It would be a novelty factor. But our strategy is looking at local rivalries first of all and then if we have to go to the broader spectrum of games, taking out the divide, we might do that."

McCarthy admitted that cost was part of the reason for keeping the games local. "That was a consideration, a cost factor for spectators and cost factor for the teams in terms of travelling and county boards, that was the second element of it. I think with local rivalries, if you look at the provinces, that's what excites people. Cork and Waterford for example at the weekend, it was a local rivalry."

Players from the participating counties attended a Croke Park media day and McCarthy was enthused by a chat he had with Westmeath's Kevin Maguire and Tipperary's Teddy Doyle who both suffered provincial semi-final defeats over the weekend, redirecting them into the new competition.

"I was chatting with them down on the pitch, they said 'Yeah, we lost yesterday but we are going to have a competition that we can perhaps do well in'," said McCarthy. "There's buy-in to it. Some of the people, some of the managers, have been quite enthusiastic about it. And it's an opportunity as well for them to develop players, in high summer."

The semi-finals and final of the competition, which will be broadcast live on RTE TV, will all be played at Croke Park and the decider will take place on July 9.

Down's Barry O'Hagan had previously rubbished the competition, claiming immediately after the Mourne County's defeat to Monaghan in the Ulster championship that it was 'pointless'.

But the experienced forward has backtracked considerably from those remarks and claimed that he and the players still involved with the Down panel will be taking it deadly seriously.

Former captain Caolan Mooney is among five players who have departed the Down panel since the Monaghan loss.

"That was probably within five minutes of our defeat against Monaghan, a heavy defeat," said O'Hagan of his controversial comments. "My own performance that day was bitterly disappointing. I thought maybe if I had kicked even two or three scores we might have been in it at that stage. Look, it was probably emotions and stuff like that that got into my head. I was a wee bit disappointed and one of the questions I was asked was, 'Would you rather be in the Tailteann Cup or an All-Ireland qualifier?'

"So that's what made me make that comment and go down that route. Look, at the end of the day, we are where we currently are at this moment in time with Down. If we put our heads together for this cup and try to develop our team, it can be beneficial for us in the long run and that's what our stand is now and hopefully it will go that way for us."