A former intercounty hurler once told An Moltóir how, when he was a student
in Cork, he received a letter from his County Board informing him that he
had been selected on the county under-21 team and telling him the time and
venue of their opening championship game the following week. On the day in
question, while waiting for a bus to the venue at Cork Bus Station, he
noticed another young man with a sports bag and hurley in the same queue,
but thought nothing of it until he entered the changing room at the match
venue to find the same young man sitting on the bench opposite him! He had
never previously set eyes on this man, and here they were going out on the
pitch on the same county team a few minutes later.

This event occurred as recently as the early 1970s, but clearly the
preparation of county teams at all levels has moved onto a different plane
in the intervening period. However, the structure of inter-county
competitions has not moved in tandem, leading to the absurd situation where
teams can spend six months training assiduously for what may be a single
match in the championship. Some tinkering is now being done with the senior
championships, with teams being guaranteed two games instead of one -
earth-shattering progress, no doubt, for so fundamentally conservative an
organisation as the GAA.

The inadequacy of inter-county competitive structures was brought home to An
Moltóir last week when he dropped into the bog by the Lee to have a look at
the first round minor hurling match between Cork and Waterford. It was an
interesting enough clash, but with a certain inevitability about the result
due to a complete lack of belief in themselves among the Déise forwards who,
between ten of them (including substitutes) managed one point from play over
the entire hour. Even then, due to sterling work by the Waterford defence,
the game remained in the balance until a late flurry of points by the Rebels
gave an undeservedly lop-sided look to the final scoreboard.

Waterford, apparently, had spent three months preparing for this game,
including a number of challenge games. However, it was only when it came to
the real thing that the Waterford selectors discovered which players had the
bottle for championship fray and what the best layout of their team was. If
they were going into another championship game next week against, say,
Limerick, they might have been able to put this learning experience to good
use. A win in that game could have had the effect of instilling morale and
confidence and an appetite for further rounds in the championship.

Instead, after three months of effort, the young Waterford players are
written off after just one attempt at proving themselves. All many of them
have to look forward to in the coming summer is participation in their county’s
pathetic minor club championships, which will provide maybe three games at
most to many clubs. This at a crucial point in the lifecycle of these
young players when they are about to leave secondary school and are facing
many choices, not only about future careers, but also about future sporting
options.

It is surely high time that the Munster Council had a look at the way their
minor hurling championship is structured. In minor football, the
round-robin system for the four ‘weaker’ counties introduced a few years ago
has worked very well in producing serious challengers to Cork and Kerry at
the semi-final stage of the championship. This presumably is why Frank
Murphy did his darndest earlier this year to do away with the system. In
minor hurling there is not the same clear divide between weaker and stronger
counties as in football, with the possible exception of Cork at one end and
Kerry at the other. But it should be possible to arrange the calendar so
that all six counties could play each other in a round robin series, with
either the top two going straight into the final or, preferably, the top
four going into the semi-finals.

Given that, under the current format, the counties involved would have
played a series of challenge games anyway in the period leading up to the
championship, the proposed alternative probably would not involve the teams
playing any more games than they otherwise would have, except they would be
more meaningful than the typical round of challenges, and would allow the
selectors to learn more about the players at their disposal. Thus, if last
week's Cork/Waterford clash had been part of a round-robin system, the
Waterford players would be able to reflect on how well they had competed for
most of the game and their selectors would be able to work on the weaknesses
which the game showed up. Thus, if the two teams were to meet again later
in the competition, it is probable that Waterford would be able to give a
better account of themselves.

This, incidentally, should not be seen as special pleading on behalf of the
Waterford specifically. Rather, it is a plea for a fairer system which
could help to bridge the gap between hurling's ‘Bbig Three’ and the aspiring
remainder. The Leinster Council also have a round-robin system for weaker
hurling counties which appears to be working quite well. In the long run,
it may be preferable to eliminate the provincial system altogether and group
counties in A, B and C competitions reflecting their relative playing
strengths.

Of course, Frank Murphy presumably will oppose any reforms which might
threaten Cork's domination of the Munster minor hurling championship, so An
Moltóir now finds himself wondering why he bothered putting these thoughts
down on cyberpaper at all.