bricktop, while I also don't personally believe Nicky Brennan or Christy Cooney were particularly good presidents for hurling in developing counties, I don't believe the removal of the Ring/Rackard finals from AI semi final days was down to them alone, or the 'elite' counties. Do you really think that arrangement was changed to suit minor hurling? Or do you think its more likely that it was changed due to pressure, or at least apathy, from the county boards outside of the top hurling counties, so the hurlers from those counties would be finished before their footballers got into full swing? That's not meant as a dig at football, I just think its a more likely rationale.
I genuinely can't remember the process followed to get the date of the RIng/Rackard finals moved to July, but was it not voted for at Congress? Would the delegates from all the other counties outside the top tier not significantly outnumber the delegates from top hurling counties? If the county boards of the counties in the Ring/Rackard/Meaghar cups had not wanted those finals moved, I don't believe it would have happened. I genuinely think that the only way hurling is going to get a fair shake in developing counties, is if we have seperate boards for football and hurling at county and provincial level. So we'd have hurling delegates voting on hurling matters, and football delegates voting on football matters. That way, hurling and football issues will be decided by those who have the best interests of football or hurling in their county/province, in mind.
Having seperate boards is sometimes proposed in Meath, but the truth is that football undoubtedly subsidises the hurling side of things in the county. A hurling only board wouldn't come near breaking even, never mind getting extra money to try and develop to the next level. Some will say "get money off Croke Park instead", and I can only imagine that Croke Park would dictate that a condition for getting funds is merging back with the football board.
Also, as it stands, with one administration over the 2 sports, they have to at least make an effort to accomodate both sports in terms of fixtures/ not having matches at the same time etc. . If it was a hurlig board vs. football board scenario, I could easily see huge conflicts arising since they are absolved from having to care about the other sport. A "f**k them, we're a hurling board, we only care about hurling fixtures, they can work around our plans" attitude could develop.
You're both right. The thing about "weaker counties" playing hurling into the summer is that would inadvertently kill the hurling clubs who already have to try to play games whilst avoiding club football fixtures. I'd leave the competitions as they are with the finals day in Croker but try to play the other rounds & semis along with a suitable football championship match as a doubleheader. Instead they're usually being ran off as stand-alone fixtures on Saturdays.