The failure of any Leinster county to qualify for the elite section of the National Hurling League second stage has produced some predictable “the-end-of-the-world-is-nigh” coverage from the national meeja aided and abetted, it should be added, by some GAA figures who should know better.

Kilkenny understandably left it a bit later this year to start recharging the batteries, and literally got caught napping. Offaly were only put out by a fluky last-minute goal in Cork. Admittedly, Wexford had a bad league, but only last summer they came within an ace of knocking Cork out of the All-Ireland series and, indeed, were it not for two appalling refereeing decisions, might have been much closer in the replay than they eventually ended up. [Incidentally, nobody has ever explained why the same referee officiated in both those matches, contrary to rule. Nor has anyone explained why the same referee is still doing top-class games: in any other sport a referee who made such basic errors would have been consigned to junior B club matches].

In the past, Dublin would nearly always have been good for at least one win in the league, but Humphrey Kelleher has made it clear that his priority is long-term rebuilding rather than short-term results, and indeed he has the backing of a long-term strategic plan for the development of hurling in the capital. And even though Laois also failed to win a match, they put in a couple of good performances which indicated that they are not too far off the pace when at full strength.

From a long-term historical point of view, intercounty hurling has never been as strong as it is today. There are nine counties going into this year’s championship with at least reasonable prospects of making progress. There are three more - Dublin, Antrim and Laois - who can harbour hopes of causing a shock on a good day. If Kerry maintain their current rate of progress, they could shortly be joining the latter group. An Moltóir remembers a time, back in the late 1950s, when there were only five realistic challengers for All-Ireland honours: Kilkenny, Wexford, Tipperary, Cork and Waterford (although Dublin did come out of the woodwork briefly in 1961). Even then, Cork failed to come out of Munster for ten years between 1956-66. In those days, Limerick, Clare and Galway were chopping blocks for the big powers, and Offaly were not even on the radar screen.

And is the situation today any better in football than in hurling? Are there nine realistic contenders for the All-Ireland? An Moltóir can identify only seven (Tyrone, Armagh, Donegal, Kerry, Galway, Meath, Dublin) although there are plenty who can cause an upset or even two on their day. Why aren’t the meeja fulminating about a national football league structure which has Waterford playing in the same division as Kildare, Derry and Down? Whatever chance the Déise had of building on last year’s under-21 breakthrough has presumably been undermined by the ritual slaughterings handed out in their games against these counties.

This is not to say, of course, that we can afford to be complacent about the future of hurling, even in its main strongholds. Given the kind of people who occupy the upper echelons of the GAA organisation, how could anyone be complacent? If the GAA had reasonable people with reasonable ability in charge, it could probably take over the world. Instead it is dominated by people who are still fighting yesterday’s misguided wars, while the rest of the world (including the organisation’s own players and supporters) has moved on.

If the GAA is to continue to thrive, two of the main requirements are good coaching and competitive structures. The first of these requires resources as well as lots of voluntary effort. The second requires simple common sense. The problem with those who are living in the past is that they still seem to think that a couple of nights pucking around in a field, a couple of challenge matches and an occasional competitive game will keep the players satisfied. Meanwhile, the local soccer club is offering a league game virtually every Sunday morning at 11.30 a.m. And then Jack Boothman thinks that keeping soccer out of Croke Park will help the GAA to win that particular battle. Admittedly, there are some counties which do have good competitive structures in place, but in others the situation remains deplorable. And the GAA is going to have to face up to the fact that, despite the greater general public interest generated by the multiplication of intercounty games in the last few years, major damage is being done to the domestic club scene as a result.

As regards coaching resources, while the voluntary effort of dedicated mentors remains vital for the well being of hurling (and football), it is increasingly necessary to supplement this with professional coaches, especially in the schools. All counties should also have the creation of a coaching centre of excellence, with all the necessary facilities, at the top of its agenda. This all requires money. Yet, while most counties struggle to maintain a minimum presence of paid coaching staff on the road, millions of Euros have been squandered on white-elephant stadia whose only real function is to serve as monuments to the personal vanity or aggrandisement of certain individuals.

The Limerick County Board recently spent a huge sum bringing the capacity of the Gaelic Grounds to over 40,000. There are now four stadia in Munster with this capacity. Yet in any year there are rarely even four games in the province which would generate a crowd of this size. This means that, at most, each of these stadia will be filled, on average, once a year. This is the height of folly. If, for example, the Munster Council had decided, years ago, to develop Thurles as the only major stadium in the province, the resultant regular business (including games in the All-Ireland series) could have made it worthwhile to put decent facilities in place there, such as proper toilets, fast-food outlets (not chip vans), bars and restaurants. This, of course, would amount to looking after the needs of spectators which, as the St. Patrick’s Day fiasco in Croke Park amply demonstrated, has never been a priority among the GAA’s powers-that-be. And, by encouraging spectators to arrive early and hang around afterwards, it could go a long way to reducing traffic chaos on big match days.

Instead, what we have are four concrete hulks straight out of the Stalinist era in Thurles, Cork, Limerick and Killarney. Spectators are required to sit on wooden planks or freezing concrete, squashed together, with seating spaces marked out by some sadist who seems to think that all GAA fans are skeletal refugees from Stalin’s gulags. The Mackey Stand is a viewing disaster and the crowded tunnels under the stands in Páirc Uí Chaoimh are a disaster waiting to happen. Meanwhile, in Ulster, where they made a wise decision many years ago to develop one decent stadium in Clones, coaching appears to be on a different plane, as indicated by that province’s domination of Gaelic football over the last ten or twelve years. Ultimately, someone should ask if the money spent on Limerick’s Gaelic Grounds would have been better spent developing a coaching centre and/or putting perhaps ten full-time coaches into the schools in the county. On second, thoughts, there is no need to ask…