Limerick's Dan Morrissey feels League winners deserve bigger Championship carrot

Helping launch the Plant the Planet Games in Dublin, Limerick's Dan Morrissey.

Limerick defender Dan Morrissey believes that a greater reward for winning the National League, in the form of a Championship get out of jail free card, would be a good idea.

The GAA is mulling over potential new structures for the spring competition with a number of different formats under consideration to increase both interest and jeopardy levels.

Waterford manager Davy Fitzgerald suggested last week that to lend more credibility to the competition, 'there should be a qualifying spot or something out of it' linked to the Championship.

Morrissey, part of the Limerick team that beat Kilkenny in last April's Division 1 final, said he would favour the league winners being granted a pass through to an All-Ireland preliminary quarter-final, instead of the Joe McDonagh runners up.

As things stand, both Joe McDonagh Cup finalists are parachuted into the MacCarthy Cup race at the preliminary quarter-final stage, taking on the two teams that finished third in their provincial groups.

"I think that's a good idea," said Morrissey at the launch of this year's Plant the Planet Games which will take place in Kenya next month.

"It will give the league a bit more emphasis, if you win the league and you're guaranteed to be in the knock-out stages. And I think in fairness to the Joe McDonagh teams, if you don't win the Joe McDonagh, potentially you don't deserve to go through to the knock-out stage.

"I do think it's important for the Joe McDonagh teams to have that incentive, where they still can compete for the Liam MacCarthy."

Limerick went on to complete a four-in-a-row of MacCarthy Cup wins this year after their league success though they were up against it at times in Munster, losing one of their games and drawing another.

Morrissey agreed that a free pass to the knock-out stages of the Championship, for winning the league, would have come in handy.

"You'd still want to get through to a Munster final because a Munster medal is still cherished but yeah, if you had known that because you won the league whatever happened in Munster then you were still through, it would have taken a bit of pressure off us in those last couple of games in Munster."

Morrissey and his brother, Limerick attacker Tom, will be part of next week's Limerick team holiday to Barbados.

Limerick’s Dan Morrissey feels the National League winners deserve more than just the silverware.

After that, defender Dan will turn his attention to the charity trip to Kenya. He and 49 other inter-county players, from all four codes, will make the trip which is the brainchild of former Galway dual star Alan Kerins and his Warriors for Humanity project.

Over EUR500,000 was raised last year, the first year of the initiative, with the funds used to plant trees to tackle the effects of climate change and raise awareness of the work of Self Help Africa.

"There's a soccer game organised with a local team and then there's a GAA game, kind of half hurling and half football, out there," said Morrissey. "Tom, my brother, was out there last year and Sean Finn as well."

After the Kenya trip, thoughts will turn to pre-season activity for Limerick and the quest for five-in-a-row. Already, Morrissey has fielded plenty of questions and comments about it. Asked how he and the group will deal with the drive to make history, he shrugged.

"Look, you probably mention it early in the year and you box it off then," he said. "It's definitely not something that will be brought up every week or before every game. There might be a bit of talk about it at the start of the year and then from our perspective it gets boxed off. Hopefully the next time we'll talk about it after that, we'll have done the five-in-a-row."

Morrissey was joined at the charity launch by Gaelic Players Association chief Tom Parsons who last week made a strong pitch for the removal of pre-season competitions, to allow players adequate preparation time.

It is now official GPA policy following a show of support from players at their AGM though Morrissey doesn't agree.

"I'd assume we'll be entering a team again," he said of the pre-season competition in Munster. "I think for new lads on the panel, it does give them an opportunity to wear the Limerick jersey. When I look at last season, we had two pre-season games and for some lads they were the only two games they played all season. They mightn't have got many games in the league or Championship so I actually think they still have a place in the calendar. Otherwise you're just playing challenge games. You'd rather be playing competitive games."

*Warriors for Humanity travel to Kenya on November 17th. Corporate sponsors wishing to support individual players or the project should contact [e-mail]. You can also buy the specially commissioned McKeever jerseys at https://portaleur.myshopify.com/collections/wfh. €20 from each purchase goes to the fundraising element of the project. Each jersey will help plant 25 trees and help 125 people towards achieving sustainable livelihoods.