Teehan believes vote ends debate on league format

OFFALY CHAIR Pat Teehan is credited by some present at Tuesday night’s Central Council meeting with having made the keynote speech in the debate on next year’s national league structures.

The meeting narrowly failed (22-14) to summon the two-thirds majority necessary to scrap the proposal to establish two six-county divisions (One A and One B) in place of last season’s eight-county divisions (One and Two). That proposal, made last August, was strenuously opposed by the eight counties who would have constituted next year’s Division One under the old system.

Ultimately, however, the Management Committee motion to strike down the August decision failed on Tuesday night and the meeting never got a chance to consider two other motions, one of which was the restoration of the eight-team divisions.

After the failure of the motion, the meeting adjourned and the Management Committee drafted a motion to provide semi-finals, between the top county in Division One B and the top three in the higher division, at the end of the regulation season.

This brought the new structure into line with a decision of the Central Council last November that semi-finals should be introduced.

Teehan’s speech was delivered in camera but yesterday he outlined to this newspaper the reasons why he felt so strongly on the issue.

“There were two distinct issues,” he said. “Firstly there was a process back in July. The Hurling Development Committee (officially disbanded but informally maintained as a sub-committee of the Coaching and Games Development Committee) came up with a proposal and counties were fully briefed on it. On that basis the decision was made.

“We supported the groups of six and not just because it suited Offaly (who had been relegated from last season’s top division) but in addition to that we felt it made the divisions more competitive in the long term.

“We had sympathy with Carlow because on the basis of the previous two years they would have qualified for Division One B. They weren’t objecting to the structure so much as the implementation.

“They felt it should be introduced in a year’s time.

“Anyway it got through and as far as I was concerned we’d have accepted it if it had gone the other way.

“It was a democratic decision and of the eight counties who subsequently opposed the decision only four spoke against it on the day.

“Subsequently there was a meeting of the eight counties and we were very annoyed over that – on two fronts: one, they had no mandate to meet – at least not in an official forum within the rules – and two, they were discussing what was for the betterment of hurling and left out all of the other hurling counties.

“Take Offaly and Clare. We’ve won six All-Irelands between us in the past 30 years and it wasn’t considered that our views should be taken into account.

“Last night to me wasn’t about whether there should be six or eight. It was about the way we run our association.”

He also revealed that some of counties who had been in favour of the original decision in August had taken exception to their characterisation as ‘football counties deciding the future of hurling’.

“I know there were a lot of counties that I spoke to last night who were annoyed over the fact that reference had been made to football counties deciding this.

“One fella said to me that while hurling may not be strong in our county, it means an awful lot to the people who are involved in hurling in the county. They’d be putting as much effort into the game as many in the bigger counties but it’s just confined to smaller areas.”

Offaly’s choice of format would have been one tried in 1999 and 2000. The two-section 14-county Division One was a competitive disaster but Teehan’s argument in favour has an internal consistency.

“Our preference all along was for two groups of seven because there are 14 teams in the MacCarthy Cup.

“Any teams playing senior championship should have the opportunity to play other teams at that level during the league season. That wasn’t an option so we couldn’t vote for it.

“We were relegated twice in the past four or five years and each time we came back it took time to come back to the standard of the top flight. With two groups of six there’s a fair standard in Division One B. Five competitive matches in Division One B is better than three of the seven matches in Division two. That isn’t being snobbish; it’s being realistic.”

Asked did he believe this was the end of the matter, Teehan said that he did.

“You have to accept a decision that’s been made twice.”