I'm with Damothedub on this. If you fall out of the top tier because you are not good enough then so be it. The county below you at the top of the 2nd tier has every right to take your place for the following year and they deserve their chance to progress. No county should be protected in hurling anymore than they should in football. I say this even with the possibility of my own county, An Dún, being relegated from the Christy Ring this year.

Suas Sios (None) - Posts: 1558 - 10/06/2014 12:18:16    1601342

The problem is the so called traditional counties are being protected from the drop and those counties like Carlow, Kildare, Kerry are facing ceiling, but in place but the GAA.

yew_tree (Mayo) - Posts: 11717 - 10/06/2014 12:21:54    1601348

I firmly believe Offaly are better than what they showed Saturday night. It was a game they were never going to win and perhaps that mindset was within them throughout the whole game and led to that awful display.

The safety net of the qualifieres seems to be suiting Offaly and perhaps that is why nothing is being done as year on year they may have had a handy draw or two and may end up playing some teams they should comfortablty beat.Many counties like Antrim / Laois / Carlow would be happy to make Rd 2 r 3 of the qualifiers or hurl at least into Mid July before the AI Quater Finals.

12 months ago everyone was singing Offaly praises for putting it up to Kilkenny but then came a cropper against Waterford in a game which many probably thought they should win giving the display against Kilkenny.

12 months later they are being slated and rightly so and I get a general feeling that people are un-happy firstly with the league campgain where they lost a relegation battle to Antrim after hammering them the week previous and then a second chance vs Kerry when it should have been Kerry promoted. Now that could have been any county in Div 1B to get the 2 chances to survive but it was unfair and just my opinion that the safety nets applied within the rules would be impacting some counties on how they approach certain games.

Upto 1996 you had one chance and there was some great games in knock out hurling. Even in 1997 when it was the beaten Munster & Leinster finalists going into the QFs there was some great games and you could see every team gave 100% and we emerged with some counties making breakthrough to winning AI Offaly , Wexford & Clare & others emerging Limerick & Waterford to make provincal championship in Munster not an easy one.

WildPundit (Tipperary) - Posts: 1709 - 10/06/2014 14:25:41    1601466

Unless they have some big masterplan and a lot of finance, Offaly will continue to get worse and no one apart from themselves will give it much thought or care. The GAA is now mainly about a top elite of about 5 or 6 in hurling, and Dublin in football, who bring in the necessary finance and who create the media interest and for Croke Park, that's all that reallly matters. The rest are collateral and every so often will be slung a few Euro as a gesture to tick the boxes for the GAA heirarchy. They threw some Euros at Antrim, Laois and Carlow in hurling as if that will make any difference at all. Expect no great improvement in Offaly hurling in the near future.

Ulsterman (Antrim) - Posts: 9837 - 10/06/2014 14:44:25    1601484