New decade, same old tale

Hurling: Hurling's crisis might be 10 years gone but little has changed, Nicky Brennan tells Seán Moran

Last Friday was the 10th anniversary of one the more famous Congress moments. In the Slieve Russell hotel in Cavan, Nicky Brennan - then chair of the Kilkenny County Board and currently chair of the Leinster Council - made a speech in which he declared hurling to be "in crisis".

"What motivated me at the time was that I was on a hurling sub-committee chaired by Tommy Barrett. We had analysed the issues and were concerned enough to want to set a few alarm bells ringing.

"There wasn't a lot on the agenda that year and we used language to create an impression."

The 10 years that followed have probably been the most eventful in the history of the game. Hurling has seen historic changes to the inter-county championship, the emergence of counties outside of the traditional triumvirate of Cork, Kilkenny and Tipperary.

Looking back to 1994, there were few signs that the game was about to open up. Between them, the big three counties had won the previous five All-Irelands and not many foresaw that the following five would be divided among Offaly, Clare and Wexford.

Brennan points out that on a microcosmic level there have also been advances. The Scéim Iomána 2000 development plan introduced by Joe McDonagh has brought up the numbers playing. Overall, he gives a qualified thumbs up to the progress made by the game.

"The net result is that there are significantly more people playing hurling and more hurling clubs. In the intervening years, Wexford and Clare gave the championship more impetus and the back-door system and its variations had a positive impact.

"What didn't happen is that counties in the second tier haven't made much progress in the past 10 years. From an outside perspective that's not a huge rate of progress. But there's a lot of hurling going on - but difficulties are there still."

But there is still a sense of unfulfilled potential, a sense grave enough to prompt GAA Director General Liam Mulvihill into this trenchant assessment in his annual report to be delivered on Friday when this year's Congress opens in Killarney.

"When all the glamour of the big occasions is stripped away, however," he says, "there is reason for concern that hurling is not making overall progress despite all the coaching and games development initiatives and changes in competition structures, which were introduced with the purpose of improving the state of the game . . .

"A fairer way of measuring progress would probably be to assess the extent to which each county has progressed within its own ability range over the past decade and I am afraid that on this scale I cannot see any reason for congratulating ourselves either."

There has been much administrative reform undertaken with a succession of high-profile Hurling Development Commitees bringing forward proposals on a regular basis. The biggest change was the introduction of the reform to allow beaten provincial finalists in Leinster and Munster to re-enter the championship.

That was passed at the London Congress of 1996 and was notable for the intense campaign waged by the HDC in order to evangelise the blueprint and avoid the fate of a previous raft of proposals at the '95 Congress, which were voted down by indifferent and at times confused delegates.

This year's congress sees hurling at a similar juncture with Kilkenny, Cork and Tipperary still at the top of the game and anxiety developing over the lack of competition at the top. Echoing a line in Mulvihill's report, Brennan is reluctant to blame the game's aristocracy for poverty elsewhere.

"We again need other counties to challenge the big three and I'm confident that they will emerge in the next 10 years. Sometimes we unfairly look on the big three as part of the reason why hurling isn't as successful as it should be. But there's also the failure of other counties to raise their standards consistently.

"But you also get a county like Mayo that has put a lot of effort into improving its standing and has seen that pay-off with some good league results.

"The best that can be expected at most levels is that counties come up for a few years even if they fall back for a while afterwards.

"One thing is worth saying. Over the last 25 years there's not much difference between hurling and football in terms of numbers of counties winning All-Irelands. There are an awful lot of also-rans in football as well."

In fact, football has seen 11 counties win an All-Ireland whereas the figure for hurling over that period is seven - but, more to the point, four counties have won the Sam Maguire for the first time in the past 12 years.

This weekend will see the latest set of proposals from an HDC come before congress. Its basic thrust is to restrict entry to the senior championship and incorporate more matches as well as raising the status of two parallel championships aimed at providing a realistic competitive context for other counties.

"I agree that it's a step in the right direction," says Brennan. "It's a package this time whereas in the past previous HDCs tended to look at the senior championship, this is looking at the lower levels.

"The principle of the competition structure is pretty similar once the provincial championships are out of the way. There's a general commonality with the major finals in Croke Park.

"But all the systems won't make any difference unless the counties take them seriously. The ball lands squarely at the feet of the county boards.

"They won't get a lot of time to run off the lower level championships and that's where the challenge arises and commitment is tested."