Tipperary opt for the direct route this year

GAA:Statistics from the last 10 years can create the uncomfortable feeling that the course of championships is a series of random events from which no trend can be extrapolated, writes SEÁN MORAN

ZHOU ENLAI’S reputed comment about it being too early to estimate the impact of the French Revolution is a good starting point for any pundit at this time of the year. Certainly since the qualifiers became part of the landscape – and while we’re taking liberties with well-known quotations – the only thing we learn from May and June is that we learn nothing from May and June.

Even the slow piecing together of statistics that have emerged over the last 10 years can occasionally create the uncomfortable feeling that the course of championships is perhaps a series of random events from which no trend can be extrapolated.

Then again, whatever about the games, attitudes don’t change much down the years.

The pressure on attendances was again visible at the weekend. Semple Stadium hosted 31,231 spectators, the poorest turnout for a Cork-Tipp championship encounter (excepting the 2007 qualifier), in 35 years when Cork took a precarious first step towards their last All-Ireland three-in-a-row by beating their old rivals 4-10 to 2-15 before 21,382.

Did Sunday represent a serious decline and, if so, why?

It happened, on the one hand, in the context of Tipperary being All-Ireland champions, and also of a range of ticket discount promotions, designed to prioritise the buoyancy of attendances at the expense of revenue. But on the other hand there were mitigating circumstances.

The qualifiers are generally prime among the usual suspects when crowds are analysed. There are, however, other factors. For a start, the mood in Cork is important.

Hurling writer Kevin Cashman, with customary acuity, once wrote that Cork supporters, being far too prone to unreliable enthusiasms, weren’t to be trusted when in upbeat humour but that their pessimism was a far more accurate indicator.

Last year, Cork having been marginally more optimistic after an extended league run, the attendance at the same fixture was slightly (around 5,000) higher, but this time around it was hard to find Leesiders who felt positive about Sunday’s prospects, an apprehension expressly intensified by having pulled off a shock 12 months previously.

It’s not that Tipperary’s feelings are irrelevant either, and during the barren decade that followed the county’s 1971 All-Ireland success, attendances at hurling’s most iconic fixture had slipped to averaging below 30,000. In 1979, the figures recovered to 40,690 – presumably because Tipp had won that year’s league and Cork had claimed the previous three All-Irelands.

In those days they also had all of the blood-and-thunder advantages of the sudden-death format, as well as live television coverage being reserved for three All-Ireland fixtures a year.

It’s hard to quantify the impact of the qualifiers and the consequent absence of sudden-death beyond the suspicion that, in football, the effective season so clearly begins in August that teams are becoming increasingly indifferent as to what route takes them there.

Hurling has, however, been different recently, since the ill-advised decision to scrap the round of four quarter-finals, in that there is such a benefit from winning the province – straight progress to the All-Ireland semi-finals – that taking the inside track seemed to make more sense. Until last year.

No county had previously won the All-Ireland in either code after leaving its provincial championship as early as May, but for a Tipperary team which had specialised in the past two years in massive gear shifts during August and September, the qualifiers offered a manageably incremental set of challenges (allowing that Galway nearly pulled the plug in last year’s quarter-final – but ultimately didn’t).

This isn’t to attempt post-hoc rationalisation of what happened. Tipperary were not happy to get plundered by Cork a year ago and licking their wounds was a slow recovery process. Nonetheless they got there. In those circumstances it’s hard for teams to get too worked up over which route they take.

Tipp, of course, have new management this year and that provides some clue as to what may be revised priorities. Twice in the last 10 years counties have retained All-Ireland titles under a first-year manager. John Allen succeeded Dónal O’Grady in 2005 and retained the Liam MacCarthy. Two years later, Pat O’Shea took over from Jack O’Connor in charge of the Kerry footballers.

He also led them to retention of their title. Coincidentally, both counties had won the first All-Ireland through the qualifiers, having lost the previous year’s final.

That’s not Tipperary’s precise experience, but there is a similarity in a management that had put in hard years getting to the Promised Land and understandably feeling in need of a break.

It’s equally understandable that a new manager may wish to stack up a bit of silverware or take the more cautious road to advancement, and so the provincial title probably has greater attraction. Winning Munster championships isn’t entirely a matter of deciding when to do so, but specific ambitions create an ambience.

On a final note, whereas the attendance of 13,107 wasn’t bad in the circumstances the wisdom of going head-to-head with a big soccer match was questioned by the fuss surrounding the decision of the Ulster Council to stage last Saturday evening’s Armagh-Down first round at the same time as the Uefa Champions League final.

The Ulster Council – more than any other provincial administration – was damned if it did and damned if it didn’t, given the existence of a constituency that would have been as hostile to any backing down on the matter as others were to what was an inconvenient clash of fixtures.

But Saturday night fixtures are a contrivance anyway. They work well when the counties involved are quite close to each other and travel isn’t such a big issue. They also provide a third broadcasting opportunity on some weekends. But, surely, if there’s any controversy about them, they can be moved?

Armagh-Down could have been played on Sunday afternoon. The television rights holder, RTÉ, didn’t even show the match live on Saturday, so any promotional argument was rendered redundant.

Here’s a word of advice. Next year’s Champions League final, between Barcelona and whoever, will be on May 19th. Just bear that in mind when drawing up the fixture list for the 2012 championship.