Structure of National Hurling League needs constant reviewing

As the Allianz Hurling League action continues into its second round at the weekend the question of what format best suits the competition has arisen.

Last Sunday Waterford manager Derek McGrath said that he felt the competition was "too serious" and expressed a preference for a top flight of 12, divided into two 'mixed-ability' groups of six counties, as was the case most recently in 2008.

McGrath’s point was that, with the tight schedule and ultra-competitiveness of Division One A, it was nearly impossible to trial players during the competition in the way he and others had been able to do in Division One B.

Top teams

Playing against the top teams in the country demands that opponents field their best teams all the time despite many having daunting playing commitments with their colleges in the

Fitzgibbon Cup

.

Feargal McGill, the GAA’s Head of Games Administration, served on the work group that promoted the current league format and he isn’t convinced about the need for change at present.

“I take Derek’s view on board and understand the point he’s making but you have to decide what you want the league to be about. The view taken most recently was that it should be as competitive as possible. Otherwise you’re saying that the championship is the only competition to be taken seriously during the year.”

Since the current format was settled on in 2012 – controversially as it entailed re-grading two counties, Wexford and Limerick, who had been in the previous eight-county top division, despite the fact that neither had lost their status on the playing field – the top two divisions have worked extremely well.

Division One A has been extremely competitive with the final placings going down to the final day of the season whereas Division One B hasn’t turned out to be the ghetto that some of the previous second divisions have been.

Limerick have twice reached All-Ireland semi-finals despite not being in the top flight and last year Waterford actually won the league title after being in Division One B during the regulation season.

Kilkenny's county chair Ned Quinn is a former head of the Hurling Development Committee. Previously he and the county had reservations about the six-team format because the financial impact of having potentially only two home matches was seen as damaging counties' coffers.

The tweak that provided for league quarter-finals between the top four counties in both divisions has answered the financial argument by grafting further big matches on to the end of the season. But Kilkenny would still like to see a slightly larger top division.

“We’ve no issue with that (gate receipts) anymore,” said Quinn, “since the quarter-finals came in but our preference would be for a seven-team league for several reasons. It would give you three home games and three away. Apart from the hurling part of it think it’s important that big games are staged in every county as often as we can and the championship format doesn’t often allow for that. It was also give you more room for manoeuvre, to try out fellas.

“There would be a team idle every weekend, I accept that but we still think it would be the best format.

“We’d take the current six and whoever’s promoted and the next seven and they’d work their way up and down over the years. There’d be a meritocracy as the basis of it.”

Hurling hierarchies

McGill believes that hurling hierarchies rise and fall and need to be monitored because the game requires different structures at different stages depending on how many counties are competitive.

“The nature of hurling is that formats need to be kept under review because the number of competitive counties changes from time to time.

“Football tends to be more consistent but in hurling we would like counties like Wexford and Offaly to be competing at a higher level than they are at the moment. Wexford had a good championship in 2014 but it’s difficult to maintain momentum.

“A problem with the league is that people analyse it in terms of who’s in a particular division rather than who’s going to be in it in the following year. The reason that the current format has worked well is that Division One B has been so competitive. If you expand One A the knock-on effect is considerable.”

Quinn agrees about the varying nature of the hurling league.

“In the GAA – and I know we can be accused of being a one-game county, which I accept – we have to treat football and hurling separately. What we did for so many years is make a decision like eight teams in the league, hurling and football. Hurling is different though and needs to be constantly nurtured.”