Back door set to be open for two more years

Hurling's revised championship format - "the back door" - is to be recommended for a further two years. The format completed a highly successful two-year trial with Offaly's All-Ireland win against Kilkenny last Sunday. Its fate will be decided by a special congress in Rosslare on the 31st of next month.

At that congress, the Hurling Development Committee - the body which formulated the experiment and guided it through the 1996 Annual Congress in London - will recommend the retention of the system for two further years.

This is intended as much as a natural review as a further period of probation but a source on the HDC has accepted that the ongoing impact on the provincial championships in Munster and Leinster will be monitored carefully. Despite a general belief that the system would be tweaked through a number of amendments, the HDC are unlikely to propose any changes other than that the Ulster champions be allowed play their quarter-final in Casement Park, the acknowledged home of hurling in the north.

This would be an acknowledgment of the difficulties facing the Ulster counties, who at the best of times find it hard to find challenge-match opposition and at the worst - the Ulster final has been held in or around the Drumcree disturbances of the last four years - find it impossible to organise training.

Whereas the intentions of the congress can't be precisely predicted, there is confidence that the recommendation will be passed. Counties have changed their minds on the issue since 1996 but not, it is believed, in sufficient number to reverse the vote of that year.

Galway were enthusiastic backers of the original proposal but, after two years of poor results in the All-Ireland quarter-finals, are believed to want their automatic semi-final places back.

Aside from personal interests, the main general objections are an unease with the dilution of the knockout element in the championship, fears for the future of the provincial championships and concern at the low level of interest shown in the new quarter-final stage which has attracted poor attendances in the last two years.

The re-admission of defeated Munster and Leinster finalists relates directly to these misgivings. The HDC accepts that had any of the big three, Cork, Kilkenny or Tipperary, won an All-Ireland after losing a provincial final, the experiment would have been dead in the water.

Last year Tipperary progressed to the All-Ireland final after losing to Clare in Munster but the verdict of the provincial championship was affirmed in the All-Ireland.

This year has, however, been different. Offaly not alone progressed from losing the Leinster final to ousting the All-Ireland champions (as Tipperary did to Wexford a year ago) but actually reversed the provincial result against Kilkenny last weekend.

Events this year did conjure up one of the conservatives' big fears: that the provincial championships will be downgraded. As Kilkenny's Charlie Carter said before the final: "If they win the All-Ireland we can nearly throw back the Leinster cup to them as well because it won't be much good to us."

Although the HDC wants to monitor the provincial championships, the experience of the past two seasons has been re-assuring. Leinster attracted a record final attendance last year and Munster has been up to capacity in all three finals (including this year's replay).

This year's Leinster final drew only 32,000 but that was well up to the usual Offaly-Kilkenny standard - which was the origin of fears for the All-Ireland crowd when the counties met.

There were five or six amendments which surfaced as the HDC deliberated on the evidence of the past two years. One was to allow Laois, Waterford and Dublin (counties which haven't won an All-Ireland for 40 years) to get a second chance if they lose their first-round matches. The counties in question would have contested with the Ulster and Connacht champions a play-off series for two quarter-final places against the losing Munster and Leinster runners-up.

Other pool systems included provincial finalists from all four provinces, the All-Ireland B champions and the National League winners contesting two places in the semi-finals where they would meet the winners from Munster and Leinster.

Another suggested refinement was that Ulster and Connacht champions would play each other in one quarter-final with the defeated Munster and Leinster teams meeting in the other. The draw would be arranged so that two teams from the one province could not meet again in the All-Ireland final.

It is strange that such strong opposition remains to the reprise of provincial finals at All-Ireland level. Last year's Tipperary-Clare meeting was popular and provided a terrific match. Whereas this year's clash between Offaly and Kilkenny was low-key in the build-up, fears that the attendance would drop below 60,000 were proved unfounded and again the standard of play was at times exhilarating.

The quarter-finals have been disappointing in their attendances but have provided two years of well-contested semi-finals. A move out of Croke Park seems inevitable given the ghostly cadences of 25,000 scattered around a big ground. If Casement Park is accepted as the venue for one quarter-final, Thurles may well become the other.

The other part of the hurling reforms, the structuring of the National Hurling League on a calendar-year basis, should be accepted without controversy. It has been generally judged a success in drawing better attendances and providing better preparation for the championship.