National Forum

Question For Hurling Fans

(Oldest Posts First)

What do you make of the second tier football proposals? It reeks to me of preferential treatment for football. Bar the first number of years after their inception the hurling lower tier competitions have been run off early in the summer. They been gotten out of the way so that they don't impact on the football counties championships. The promotional effort made for these competitions is to my knowledge pretty sparse. I'm very firmly a football man but it still annoys me how hurling is an afterthought on a lot of occasions. Maybe I'm just getting grumpy in my old age.

Whammo86 (Antrim) - Posts: 4207 - 15/11/2018 18:39:00    2151257

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Replying To Whammo86:  "What do you make of the second tier football proposals? It reeks to me of preferential treatment for football. Bar the first number of years after their inception the hurling lower tier competitions have been run off early in the summer. They been gotten out of the way so that they don't impact on the football counties championships. The promotional effort made for these competitions is to my knowledge pretty sparse. I'm very firmly a football man but it still annoys me how hurling is an afterthought on a lot of occasions. Maybe I'm just getting grumpy in my old age."
Strange question to be putting to hurling fans...what do we think of the second tier football proposals. Basically as a hurling man, I don't have any opinion! How football wants to organise itself should be up to football people to decide. If your point is about the second tier football being given more respect and status than its hurling equivalent, yes well that's pretty much inevitable since in most counties where football is weak it is still the no.1 sport whereas there is no county outside the top tier in hurling where hurling is the no.1 sport and it is usually well down the pecking order in terms of participation and interest.

But should the McDonagh/Ring/Rackard/Meagher competitions be given more exposure and be promoted better? Absolutely. The finals of these competitions should be curtain raisers to big McCarthy Cup matches. But if county boards in football dominated counties have antipathy or apathy towards hurling within their counties (as many do) then the possibility of promoting the game and giving it a higher status is practically non existent.

PoolSturgeon (Galway) - Posts: 1902 - 15/11/2018 23:41:34    2151274

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Replying To Whammo86:  "What do you make of the second tier football proposals? It reeks to me of preferential treatment for football. Bar the first number of years after their inception the hurling lower tier competitions have been run off early in the summer. They been gotten out of the way so that they don't impact on the football counties championships. The promotional effort made for these competitions is to my knowledge pretty sparse. I'm very firmly a football man but it still annoys me how hurling is an afterthought on a lot of occasions. Maybe I'm just getting grumpy in my old age."
The promotional effort made for most GAA competitions is minimal, its just not something the GAA do. Maybe it's for the best, it means the games don't have the hysteria and fakery that other sports have.
It's been called for before to have the Rackard and Meagher competitions played later in the summer but I'd be surprised if many players wanted that. The criticism of GAA is often that players do too much training for very few games, having the year drag on for another 2 months just so lads can play as a curtain raiser for the bigger counties isnt very appealing. Almost all hurlers at the lower level play club football, having the hurling season over by June means they can get back to their clubs. There was a walkover given in a county hurling final this year in a football county because the club had a football game 7 days later and didn't want to risk injury - the blame for the poor state of hurling in many areas lies much closer to home than Croke Park.

Soma (UK) - Posts: 2630 - 16/11/2018 15:53:49    2151335

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I'm a hurling man, and also a football man.

I think it is time for a 2nd tier, being honest if people in these counties (my own included) want to see the games get up off their backsides and go to the match, never mind complaining about a lack of promotion.

The best way to promote the games is to go to them. Live GAA is a modern day entitlement and while I don't remember the era before it, people need to get up and go to the games rather than moaning about a lack of promotion.

Although being honest, I would welcome anything which meant club matches happened in the summer over any inter county game ideas. I am sick of our clubs being dead in the summer.

StoreysTash (Wexford) - Posts: 1732 - 17/11/2018 13:48:45    2151406

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Brian Cody has just chimed in on this topic - essentially, inter-county's elite status should be diminished to give the club man greater opportunity.
In soccer, FIFA/UEFA have set aside short international blocks within the club season - here the international tail does not wag the club dog - for example, Euro qualifiers in 2019 will be played in Mar, Jun, Sep, Oct, Nov - 2 games in each of 5 months.
Those players play 40+ club games and only 10 for their country - a 4x ratio.
Should the GAA do something similar - a curtailed 8 intercounty games group phase leading to a 4 rd KO AIC ?
After all, this is an amateur organisation.

Merge NFL (tiered like Nations League) into AIC Race - Divs 1A and 1B of 9 teams (equal rank) and Divs 2N and 2S of 7 teams (equal lower equal rank, north and south).
Div 2 - top 4 of 7 in each after 6 games to AIC Tier 2 QFs, SFs and F - Champ to AIC Tier 1 KO 11.
Div 1 - top 5 of 9 in each after 8 games to AIC KO 11, QFs, SFs and F. Best 5 of 10 Div 1 get byes to QFs.
Play club games throughout the summer using 'Monaghan style' points system - 2 pts/win without intercounty players and 5 pts/win with them.

omahant (USA) - Posts: 2570 - 18/11/2018 03:44:05    2151437

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Replying To Whammo86:  "What do you make of the second tier football proposals? It reeks to me of preferential treatment for football. Bar the first number of years after their inception the hurling lower tier competitions have been run off early in the summer. They been gotten out of the way so that they don't impact on the football counties championships. The promotional effort made for these competitions is to my knowledge pretty sparse. I'm very firmly a football man but it still annoys me how hurling is an afterthought on a lot of occasions. Maybe I'm just getting grumpy in my old age."
Excellent interview in the paper over the weekend with one of the best from your own county, Micky McCullough. We'll worth a read if you are interested in that type thing.

Soma (UK) - Posts: 2630 - 19/11/2018 20:37:01    2151730

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