Apart from the death of Little Nell, which moves me to tears every time my mind wanders at Congress (once a year), the recognised relevance of Dickens to the world of the GAA is limited. Not this week. Last weekend's programme of activity was the best of times and the worst of times for Croke Park.
Positively speaking there was the series of big matches, fine performances and a good share of surprises - and watched by an aggregate attendance of around 170,000 for the seven matches. In addition there was the live broadcasting of three matches to maintain interest among the large television audience.
On the debit side, however, some problems were highlighted.
1 - Calendar of matches: Last weekend's bewildering array of attractive matches included two replays but the other games were all sanctioned for the same weekend. Of the seven fixtures, three (not counting the Clare-Tipperary replay) were always going to be seminal events in the season.
Of the complete programme, five of the matches were more important than any of Sunday week's and of the coming weekend's fixture list only Wexford-Offaly could clearly be classified as within the same league. This is manifestly daft when a simple rearrangement would have guaranteed strong schedules all the way from now to the end of the championships rather than creating a two-week hiatus at the end of June.
2 - The narrow base: The early part of the season has become increasingly dominated by the Munster hurling championship. This isn't an entirely new phenomenon but it's by no means a guaranteed one. The tightness and competitiveness of the championship make it attractive at a time of the year when other provinces are separating wheat from chaff.
Munster hurling's star billing in recent years is largely the result of the three middle-rank counties casting aside their shackles. Limerick, Clare and Waterford have all contributed to the great, demotic dramas of the 1990s. This summer marks the sixth year since either Cork or Tipperary won a Munster title. - which equals the previous record from 1931-37.
Clare have been the constant in all of this but their experience has been an inspiration for others. Unfortunately, the tight-knit world of Munster hurling is not really a template for the rest of the country and although there are more counties who now fancy their chances of winning an All-Ireland, few inroads have been made in those areas where the game has struggled at senior level.
Greater resources and attention to coaching will have a downstream effect in some of the very weak counties but there is as yet no sign that marginal counties are becoming any better equipped to contest senior championships. In fact, Meath, Westmeath and Carlow, who used to enter the Leinster championship and were all, at differing times, competitive, have now withdrawn.
Derry count as a success in Ulster and may soon add to the list of modern provincial winners but this is in the context of declining standards in the North as its representatives haven't been really competitive in the All-Ireland series since the early 1990s.
3 - Knockout structure: This topic was addressed here only a couple of weeks ago but its unsatisfactory nature was underlined at the weekend. Teams as disparate as Roscommon's footballers and Waterford's hurlers wintered in hope that their improved standing in last year's championship would be an ideal platform for this summer. Last Sunday their seasons ended abruptly and all hopes of progress with them. In other words, every big occasion/good match ended the year for one of the teams involved.
The problems this causes for team-building are obvious, particularly in those counties which aren't traditionally used to championship success. Even in blue-chip brands like Tipperary, the sudden-death format has done little for a county which had raised public levels of enthusiasm with a successful spring and assembled an eager bunch of young players at the start of summer.
When the inadequacies of the system were highlighted here there was a stream of correspondence (yes, there was) agreeing and putting forward all sorts of alternative plans for running the championship in a way which would guarantee three matches to counties each summer. The most viable of them will be given an airing in the future.
4 - Provincial championships: There was no mistaking the new realities in hurling at the weekend. You only had to look at Jimmy Barry-Murphy's wired-up presence on the sideline and his elation afterwards to know that, aside from the personal vindication involved, the semi-finals in the Munster and Leinster hurling championships have become high-stakes affairs.
This has combined with the previously-mentioned greater degree of competitiveness in the province to bring out big crowds. Unless Kerry get a bye into the semi-finals, each of the penultimate-stage matches attracts impressive attendances. Between the draw, replay and second semi-final, 120,000 went to this year's matches.
As was recalled in this newspaper on Monday, the Waterford-Cork replay of 10 years ago pulled in a crowd of 15,000. On Sunday in Thurles, the attendance was 46,000. The reasons are easy to see. Not alone are the matches attractive but the winners are guaranteed a championship presence until the brink of August.
Traditionalists will fear the downgrading of the provincial finals - and with some reason - and that to an extent is the natural consequence of the system which makes the semi-finals more important.
In the very short term it doesn't appear to be a major difficulty because Cork's young side is unlikely to lie on the ropes during the county's first Munster final in seven years whereas Clare will be aware that any slip-ups - intentional or not - could push them into an extra match with serious opposition and as last year demonstrated, Clare's style doesn't lend itself to playing more matches than is absolutely necessary.
In Leinster, the absence of a genuine fourth contender has reduced the appeal of the semi-finals compared with Munster. Two years ago when Dublin were a coming team and confidence levels were high, their match against Kilkenny together with Wexford's against Offaly created a record attendance for Leinster semi-finals. Last year the numbers dropped and are expected to do so again this weekend despite Laois's close-run match with Kilkenny at the same stage last year.
5 - Refereeing: Dickie Murphy's status as the top hurling referee was dented slightly but only because he did what he does best - keep the lid on a match without applying punishing sanctions to every infringement. The game flows and generally tensions are defused. The problem is that many referees don't have his genial authority and must lay down the rules as they are in the book. Which leaves them looking controversial and players growling about inconsistency.
E-mail: smoran@irish-times.ie
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