Last Saturday in Semple Stadium, Thurles, the Senior Hurling Championship proper commenced in a flurry of flags and clashing camáns, when old rivals Cork and Limerick, as well as Kilkenny and Galway, did battle for a place in the All-Ireland semi-finals. Semple is by far the best-located, most atmospheric and truest of our major hurling pitches and indeed there are many who argue that, irrespective of the counties involved, it should automatically host the Munster Final and at least one of the All-Ireland semi-finals, writes John G O'Dwyer
Certainly, Thurles is the spiritual home of hurling, not only because it was here that the founding fathers of the GAA first met, but also because it lies almost exactly at the centre of the area where hurling is the dominant sport. Many who were in Thurles for last Saturday's games, or for the wonderful Munster final weekend in June, could be forgiven for believing - incorrectly, as it happens - that hurling enjoys rude good health and is the most popular field sport in Ireland.
In reality there are only three counties where hurling is broadly distributed. The virtuous triangle formed by Tipperary, Waterford and Kilkenny encompasses the true hurling heartland. Otherwise, the game has a vigorous presence only in adjoining areas of the seven counties that border this triangle. The hurling heartland consists of less than 25 per cent of Ireland's total land area and no county outside this region presently has any realistic chance of winning an All-Ireland Senior Hurling title.
Not surprisingly, distributing hurling more widely outside its core area has long been a cherished but unfulfilled aspiration within the GAA. Here the very beauty and complexity of the game have proven its undoing. Intensive coaching has allowed games such as basketball and soccer to travel and be played at the highest level worldwide. Unfortunately, the awesome level of skill required to play first-class hurling makes it almost impossible to learn beyond childhood. Top-level hurlers invariably come from a tradition where babies virtually arrive "camán in hand".
And now, even within its core area, there are signs that hurling is no longer prospering as before. The "back-door" system introduced in 1997, where counties gets a second chance in the hurling championship, provides many more games, but has not assisted the weaker counties. After a glorious period between 1980 and 1998 when nine all-Ireland titles were won by counties outside the three traditional hurling superpowers of Tipperary, Cork and Kilkenny, these three have returned to dominance, winning every All-Ireland senior championship since 1999.
Meanwhile, rugby has expanded greatly in hurling's Munster heartland and slick marketing has now established it as the number one glamour sport with young people. Declining attendances at early round championship games and a sense of inevitability about the All-Ireland finalists now point the need for the GAA to learn lessons from the oval ball game.
For the past decade rugby has been quietly stealing the GAA's clothes by developing provincial loyalties in the way the Railway Cups for hurling and football abjectly failed to do. The success of Munster rugby has been built around locally developed talent playing alongside a small number of imported players. The presence of South Africans Trevor Halstead and Shaun Payne, along with Argentinian Federico Pucciariello, was crucial to Munster's Heineken Cup success but did nothing to dilute support for the Munster team. Indeed, within Gaelic games itself the presence of Kildare men Larry Tomkins and Shea Fahy was welcomed by most Cork football supporters as crucial to the back-to-back Championship successes of 1989 and 1990.
Could such a system not now be developed and formalised to promote hurling? Is there a reason why the GAA cannot grant-aid counties such as Westmeath, Antrim, Laois and Dublin to import players from the top hurling counties? As a starting point, each county might be allowed to employ three players from the stronger counties as full-time hurling coaches on condition that they also play for the county in which they are employed. This system would preserve the players' amateur status, raise the overall standard of hurling in the area concerned and make the weaker county teams more competitive in the hurling championship. It would also leave 12 places available for local players on a team now carrying a genuine prospect of success. A second alternative would see scholarships offered for young hurlers from the stronger counties to attend third-level colleges located in weaker hurling counties, on condition that they play for the county in which the college is situated.
Certainly many excellent players in the stronger hurling areas, not quite making the county team, would jump at such an opportunity. And there might well be established inter-county players who would also be attracted by a chance to work full-time with a game they love, if an attractive package were on offer. Wouldn't the prospect of a Cloonan, a Kelly or an Ó hÁilpín wearing the blue of Laois in a Leinster Final against Kilkenny be just the mouth-watering prospect needed to inject fresh life into the presently tired and woefully predictable Leinster Hurling Championship?