Duffy hopes hurling format will be agreed

IT’S HARDLY ideal that the GAA will this Thursday stage the draw for the 2012 intercounty hurling and football championships, still unsure of the format of the 2012 hurling league, which of course precedes it.

But GAA director general Páraic Duffy is confident agreement can be reached on the hurling format in time to complete the 2012 master fixture list before the end of next month.

The controversial decision to revamp the hurling league into two top-tiers of six teams each, effectively creating a new division one and two, will go back to Central Council on November 12th, following discussions by Management Committee on Saturday – with the likelihood now of a return to the pre-existing format.

“The situation is the eight counties who are unhappy with the new format have individually tabled a motion, the same motion, for the next Central Council meeting,” explained Duffy. “They want to go back to divisions of eight (teams) with semi-finals. It will require a two-thirds majority to overturn the original decision of Central Council.

“Whether people want it or not is another story, but that’s up to Central Council to decide. The only point I’d make, and I personally don’t have a strong view on this, is there were three proposals put forward at the meeting. The one that was accepted was by the HDC, chaired by Liam O’Neill.

“The problem with hurling that everybody accepts is that there are eight, maybe 10 strong teams. The next two teams are a problem, so they were trying to accommodate them, whereas the eight counties wanted to play against each other, so it’s very hard to reconcile those issues.

“I can understand where they’re coming from, but I also understand what the HDC were trying to achieve. At the moment we haven’t found a way of reconciling that, but I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of making some kind of compromise.”

In the meantime, Duffy agreed completing the master fixture list on time will be “very tight”, but at least the 2012 championship draw will be known by Thursday evening (live on RTÉ 2 from 8pm).

The GAA have agreed one change to that process in that before the provincial councils go away and set their schedules, the TV rights holders will first state their preferred live matches, thereby reducing the likelihood of having some of the bigger games conflicting with each other.

“What we’re doing this year is after the draws on Thursday night we will then ask the TV companies what games they would like to cover,” said Duffy. “In the past, and this caused the problem, the provincial councils made their fixtures and then the TV companies picked the games they wanted to cover. Sometimes there were three or four games they wanted to cover on the same day.

“It doesn’t mean every situation will be possible this time, but it should make it a little less difficult than it has been.”

There are still a couple of other details of the 2012 championship format still to be agreed, or rather re-examined, namely the decision at Congress last April to re-introduce replays for all championship matches, including the qualifiers, instead of extra-time: “I don’t believe that motion is implementable, for want of a better word, because it would lead to fixtures chaos.

“So Central Council will be asked to bring that to the agenda of the meeting on November 12th, with a view, if there is a consensus there, to ask Congress to review the decision. That would then apply for 2012, because Central Council now have the right to allow that motion come into effect immediately.”

However, the GAA are unlikely to pursue any demands for a shorter championship season: “As it stands the finals are still set for September and there’s no change in that. There’s a good argument for changing that, in that it would free up club championships to be played all through September, but the only problem in making the season shorter is the only time of the year when the GAA enjoys the top billing in the media is the summer months, from May to the end of September.

“We get that from the media and we accept that but if you make that even tighter then it means you’re finished at the end of August and other sports dominate from then on.”

Speaking of other sports dominating, Duffy had no issue whatsoever with the success of the Irish team at the Rugby World Cup, or that the GAA might somehow be spooked by it all.

“Not at all. Look, we do our own thing, and they do theirs. That’s the way it should be and I wouldn’t be spooked in the slightest. I would congratulate the Irish team. For us, our job is to keep doing what we’re doing, and do it well. Kids will play different games, so that’s not an issue.

“By and large most GAA people I know would be chuffed to see the rugby success, and feel very positive about it. Some people might have different views, but I think GAA people welcome their success, and wish them nothing but well. There’ll be ups and downs, but I don’t think there is any implications for us, other than it’s good for Ireland.”