Laois on the up but still likely to go down

AFTER SUNDAY'S encouraging win over Offaly, Laois manager Damien Fox is critical of the intention to rationalise Division One at the end of this season.

James Young's injury-time free secured the points in Portlaoise, but Fox is realistic about the county's chances of staying in the top flight. Under the new structure to be implemented in 2009, the NHL will consist of four divisions of eight so the current 12-county Division One will retain only the top eight.

According to Fox, this creates a major difficulty for teams in development. "We're gearing everything towards our championship date on 25th May and having a settled team in place," he says. "This is a difficult group and our problem with the league is that with four counties going down we could end up in relegation trouble.

"If we go down it's a step backwards because a young, developing team needs to be exposed to hurling at the top level so we'd like to stay where we are.

"The GAA is paying lip service to counties like Laois. The league has turned into an elite competition and should be left as it is if they really want to improve hurling during the summer."

The new format has had a laborious introduction with a nine-team format being approved at the special congress of October 2006, only to be shelved amidst protests from Offaly, who had lost out in the relegation play-offs. Instead, it will come into force next year.

Ned Quinn, chair of the Hurling Development Committee (HDC) which formulated the new structure, disagrees with the thrust of Fox's argument and believes that the development needs of counties require proper planning and substantial funding.

"There are about 10 top teams and we need to invest in the next six to eight counties so that they can make the jump. Funding should be over four or five years and on the basis of a plan so that expenditure can be validated. You can't put money into a black hole, hand over €200,000 and say 'there you go'."

According to Quinn, there's no point in trying to base a county's developmental needs on maintaining top division status, hoping that they step up to the mark.

"The gap can't be bridged in pure competition. Anyway, if four teams go down and the top four in the second division stay where they are, the division would be a lot more competitive than the present one would be. I wouldn't believe that getting substantially beaten frequently benefits a team's development."

Although relieved to see the NHL back on track with Cork hurlers having returned for their first match at the weekend, Quinn still regrets the decision of the Central Competitions Control Committee (CCCC) to award forfeits to Kilkenny and Waterford in respect of the fixtures that Cork couldn't fulfil.

"We would have preferred if Kilkenny and Waterford had been allowed to play Cork. I'm not criticising the CCCC decision and I would have left it stand in the National Football League. But from a purely HDC perspective I would argue that hurling needed those games.

"We could have got 20,000 to the Cork-Kilkenny game if it had gone ahead the weekend in question."

Fox says he wasn't surprised at his team's win against his own county Offaly, as Laois had shown promise in the opening fixtures.

"We have concentrated on our own performance going into the games. Against Limerick and Clare we fell away, but the idea against Offaly was to play as hard as we could for as long as we could."

Although he acknowledges the fact that the two points won at the weekend put the county in with a theoretical chance - their final fixtures are against leaders Tipp and Galway - of retaining their status, Fox says that he's primarily interested in bringing along the young talent at his disposal.

"The intention was to improve our performance levels. Hooking and blocking and closing down - all the top teams can do that very well. They're the areas we're working on."