Hurling gets a spring in its step

TOMORROW'S opening series in the Church & General National Hurling League excepting Division Three, which began two weeks ago sees the start of the much heralded running of the competition in the calendar year. The initial stages of the experiment are in fact the least meaningful. Everyone is used to League hurling at this stage of the year and frequently it is played in swamps. As a result, nothing can be usefully considered for another month or so.

The one element that does bear scrutiny is the decision by Central Council to proceed with three matches, rather than two, this month. If the experiment with good weather was to be given its optimum trial, as many rounds as possible should have been played from April on.

Later on, there will be opportunities and problems. The opportunities have been exhaustively detailed and relate to better weather and firmer conditions for teams whose normal acquaintance with competitive hurling bears more resemblance to cross-country running.

The lead-in to the championship, even for top-rank teams, will now be more evenly-paced, and the later stages of the League can be contested without worrying about the demands of championship training.

Whereas there has been nothing new contributed to the debate about the calendar year, one aspect of the winter didn't work out quite as planned, despite its being glaringly predictable. Over the winter, the absence of NHL matches was supposed to enhance the media coverage granted to other competitions, principally club championships.

In fact, the need to alternate club football and the NFL meant that the club hurling matches had to compete for coverage with the football League. Competitions such as the Oireachtas and the South-East League enjoyed a modicum of serious attention, but provided mostly laboratory conditions and less than fully-engaged effort. Short of switching football to a calendar year, there isn't much that can be done to change this.

On the pitch, Clare's emphasis on producing a panel rather than a team may turn out to be the wave of the future, but only if counties take both League and championship sufficiently seriously.

There remains the possibility that some counties will run scared of total involvement in the League as long as they are still in the championship. Alternatively, and more likely, teams will simply forget about the peculiar preciousness which has in the past made teams reluctant to play competitively more than once every two or three weeks.

Players no longer have to be at peak inter-county fitness for up to nine months of the year and their capacity to exploit their fitness by lining out in a few more matches during the summer will be enhanced.

Returning to publicity, there will be difficulties during the knockout stages of the League - and to an extent before - when NHL fixtures are up against championship football. It is to be hoped that the obvious solution will be applied with Saturday and weekday evening matches staged.