Long haul ahead for the weaker counties

GAA/Analysis: A mixed weekend for hurling. The strengths of the game were on display in glorious technicolor at Semple Stadium but a bit farther below the surface lay the same old problems, writes Seán Moran

The previous day had seen the four first-round qualifiers played off around the country. The Gaelic Grounds staged a gripping match between Limerick and Tipperary and on the basis of a one-point defeat, the home side were beaten and after two narrow defeats by Cork and Tipp are tossed on to the same heap as the road kill from the other matches.

By Saturday night Laois, Dublin and Down had lost their qualifiers by an average of over 20 points each.

It's not so long since Laois and Dublin used to be grouped together with Waterford as examples of teams which hurling needed to do better. Now they can just about make out Waterford's vapour trail.

Hurling is a savage game. Relatively small deficits of skill can be magnified on the scoreboard during matches. The problem with the qualifiers is that teams with maybe a thorough beating already scarring their backs end up having to play some unforgiving major county, which has just lost its own first championship fixture.

This has led, with few exceptions, to a second scourging and consequent loss of morale. Dublin's cumulative losses have been 41 points in two matches and Laois's 30. Then, look at the example of Down.

They have had a fine year, winning the National League Division Two title in some style and making a great run at the Ulster title. Even on Saturday they trailed Galway by only two points at half-time. But their sign-off for an encouraging season will be a 17-point defeat.

Pat Dunny, chair of the Hurling Development Committee, who was so effective at guiding next year's new championship structure through Congress in April, is convinced more matches will improve the standards for these counties. The new format will do that, guaranteeing each county three matches.

In the light of the weekend's matches there have to be reservations about how big an impact this will actually have on the likes of Dublin and Laois. It's all very well to maintain, as Dunny does, that you can't base a strategy on a set of results in any given year but both the above counties appear to be getting worse than better.

These are not isolated examples, as the long-term trend for what we might term second-rank counties is equally discouraging and it's making a farce of the senior championship's early stages. Asked whether restricting the counties eligible to enter the championship to 12 as opposed to eight is spreading the net too wide, Dunny pointed out that deciding the top eight would be too arbitrary a task.

He's right up to a point but the top nine would be self-selecting: Cork, Clare, Limerick, Tipperary, Waterford, Kilkenny, Offaly, Wexford and Galway. On only four occasions in over 20 years has any one of those counties lost a championship match to opponents from outside that elite.

Pat Dunny is right to hold out hope for the weaker counties under his new blueprint but the evidence suggests that it's going to be a long haul.

Leaving aside the depressing stuff, the Munster final was by any definition a great match. Hurling is such a skilful game that it's almost always possible to find fault with the technical aspects of any given afternoon but that can border on pedantry, particularly when the three essentials are present in a big match.

Excitement, spectacle and redemption combined on Sunday to deliver a truly memorable occasion. What gave Sunday such excitement was the knife-edge on which the outcome balanced for virtually the whole 70 minutes.

It looked Cork's day at half-time and when John Mullane got the line, I made a mental note of the time and mused that the report would probably declare the match to have died in the 38th minute. But waiting for Cork to pull away on the scoreboard gave way to surprise at and admiration for Waterford's resilience and finally to a crescendo of excitement, as the possibility of the champions being dethroned came into focus.

Yet there was a strong inkling that Cork would inevitably squeeze the necessary scores out of the remaining minutes and in that way the result remained in doubt. It was reminiscent of 1995 when Clare won their breakthrough Munster title.

They were comfortably ahead by the end but such was the level of scepticism that few in the crowd actually believed they were going to win and consequently tension was maintained until the end.

Any match can have excitement, but Sunday's was a spectacular game. Yes there were mistakes but they are inevitably part of any great occasion, just as the sense of regret and remorse that haunts those responsible is.

The quality of play was however high. The point scoring in the first half was at times exceptional and the defensive displays by Waterford, especially Ken McGrath and Eoin Murphy in the second half, and Cork's Seán Ó hAilpín were equally impressive.

It's been a remarkable two months for Waterford since they went down to Galway in the National League final and in the process appeared to reaffirm all the reservations about the team. Since then in yet another echo of Clare in 1995 - they were well beaten in that year's league final by Kilkenny - they have made the championship their own.

Former Cork player Jimmy Barry-Murphy is right when he avoids getting involved in the compulsion to make lists. Great matches are as much of the moment as case studies for posterity. That everyone was enthralled for a memorable afternoon will do for now.