HURLING DUBLIN COLLEGES:Tom Humphries says the combined colleges idea has been a great help to Dublin hurling and hurling in general

THESE ARE strange but interesting days for Dublin hurling as the city’s success at underage level draws a worryingly lukewarm reaction from the game’s traditional strongholds.

In Athy this afternoon the Dublin South Colleges team will take on Castlecomer CBS in the Leinster ‘A’ senior semi-final. Next Wednesday in Parnell Park the Leinster ‘B’ final will be contested, uniquely, between two southside Dublin colleges – Coláiste Eoin and Coláiste Eanna.

Two Dublin sides popping their heads up makes traditionalists wonder what has gone wrong.

Pity. These successes are a vindication of the policy which led Dublin to ask for access to ‘A’ grade hurling at schools level for its hurlers and yet it remains to be seen how much of a welcome the traditional strongholds of Leinster colleges hurling will offer these developments.

The success of Coláiste Eoin and Coláiste Eanna isn’t isolated and the game is healthy in Oatlands, Ard Scoil Ris, St Declan’s and several other schools but it is unlikely that any one school, even Coláiste Eoin, could sustain life in Leinster ‘A’ colleges hurling for very long.

Still what happens next will be interesting. There has been a growing sense of disgruntlement in other Leinster counties that the Dublin experiment has done what it said it would do. The mood at present seems to be in favour of turning the clock back. Dublin would argue that the need is there to expand the experiment and its benefits into other counties.

Dublin’s success first of all though. Since the efforts of the early combined colleges teams run by Colm Mac Sealaigh (then in Coláiste Eoin) the game in Dublin has benefited hugely from the exposure. In the 10 years since Mac Sealaigh first brought a Dublin Colleges team to a Leinster final, where they lost to St Kieran’s of Kilkenny by eight points, Dublin players have continued to be provided with top-level schools hurling against their peers from Kilkenny, Wexford and elsewhere.

The graduates are now filtering through in reliable numbers to senior level and the experience has been instrumental in creating a hurling culture within the city.

Coláiste Eoin, for instance, had more than 80 boys out for their first-year trials this year The players are getting better too. The experience, again say in Coláiste Eoin who have competed as an individual school at under-14 level in Leinster competition, has been that until recently Dublin players at the age of 14 wouldn’t have had the smarts or the ability of players in Kilkenny of the same age.

That has changed with better coaching in Dublin and Coláiste Eoin not only have five of the last eight Dublin titles at that grade on their shelf but a Leinster title too.

It is the senior competition which offers most benefits, however, and the combined colleges idea has offered a massively equitable means of bringing players through to a higher level.

A player in a ‘C’ grade school with the ability and dedication can find himself playing against St Kieran’s.

A case in point would be Conor Connolly who captained the Dublin Colleges to their sole All-Ireland success in 2006. Connolly was in school in Coláiste Chillian who play in the ‘C’ grade.

As of last year, the single colleges side which had been representing Dublin was split into North and South versions. Both teams surprised with their strength and the Dublin South team, bolstered by a strong presence from Coláiste Eanna and Coláiste Eoin, took the Leinster league title before Christmas.

The argument now is for further dilution and Dublin may be asked either to have no combined team next year or to enter a combined team which doesn’t draw from at least a couple of its strongest colleges. The winners of next Wednesday’s ‘B’ final may be asked to enter the ‘A’ grade next year.

It leaves Dublin in something of a cleft. Most schools in Dublin draw from two or three clubs at best. It would be difficult for any school to survive on that basis in ‘A’ grade hurling especially given the challenges offered in the city by the demands of football and the club season.

The argument will focus more likely, however, on how best to facilitate the needs of smaller hurling schools in Kilkenny like Castlecomer and Callan when perhaps it should be how to expand hurling in general.

Mike Connolly, architect of many of the changes in Dublin hurling in the past decade and a past pupil of St Kieran’s, argues that the entire argument is being viewed the wrong way. He feels the ‘A’ grade would benefit from the presence of more combined colleges teams not less.

“You get a young fella from Meath, say, and he goes on to the DJ Carey school of hurling and he is as good as anything there and he comes back and he is locked out of that world effectively for the rest of his career.”

“Let’s face it, St Kieran’s and Kilkenny CBS and the big traditional hurling schools, they won’t suffer. They are almost regional development centres for hurling. There is a question definitely about the Callans and the Castlecomers.

“Maybe progress for them will be harder but is the Leinster Council about expanding its hurling base or about protecting Kilkenny hurling?

“Why shouldn’t a young fella in Leixlip and a young fella in Laois get access to playing at that standard? Between the ages of 16 and 19 that’s hugely important. Look at Kilkenny hurling. Look at Kerry football or Tyrone football.

“They depend on ‘A’ standard schools. Clubs realise the benefit and take a step back during that period. If we are to bring through counties in Leinster hurling we need to be exposing players at that level to top-level hurling.

“It’s not all about winning. If we can’t give equal access to the top level of hurling at that age group we will never change it at the level above. I know you are talking about a managed platform, artificially created to develop hurling but isn’t developing hurling what we are about?”

It has taken 16 years for the Dublin Colleges to go from entry to the Leinster competition through the stages of reaching a first Leinster final, winning a first, winning an All-Ireland to now be decently competitive. It will take at least half a decade more for the benefits to accrue at senior level.

That’s two decades of hard work. For the next few days it will be no harm to just enjoy the feeling of progress and to survey the changed hurling landscape.

The colleges team which plays in Athy will be graced by players of the calibre of Sean McGrath of Crokes, Danny Sutcliffe of St Jude’s, Peter Elliot of Crumlin and Marc Shutte of Cuala, any of whom are as good as Dublin have produced.

Next Wednesday Coláiste Eanna, virtually a parish school, bring the best players of their feeder club, Ballyboden, to Parnell Park to battle Coláiste Eoin where McGrath, Shutte and Sutcliffe all hurl. Dublin’s long period of hard work is producing some crops. Leinster must decide whether to plant for the aristocrats or for the peasants in the next decade or two.