GAELIC GAMES:THE DIFFERENCE in standard between Division One and Division Two of the hurling league is like plummeting to earth from the heavens. The Allianz Division Two final tomorrow night between Clare and Limerick will decide which county rejoins the elite and who must furrow away in hurling backwaters for another year.
The main concern for the respective managers Ger ‘Sparrow’ O’Loughlin and Donal O’Grady is the damage it does to their preparations come the summer. “On one pitch the fourth official didn’t even have a board,” said O’Grady yesterday.
The loss of a coin toss forces Limerick to travel over to Cusack Park in Ennis for this do-or-die play-off but really it was O’Grady’s theory on how the league should be restructured that we sought.
“There is a disparity but my feeling on it is that it would be more equitable if there were two groups of six. Have the likes of Kilkenny, Dublin, Cork, Tipp, Waterford and Galway in the top group and after that you could have Offaly, Wexford, Limerick, Clare, Antrim and Laois.
“The Division Two champions could then play the bottom team in Division One and if they win they go up and if they don’t, they stay there. What you want is competitive games. You don’t want to end up beating some county by five goals and 22 points because eventually if that happens . . . all you have to do is look at the crowds.
“Let’s be quite honest as well. I don’t know do ye make the long trips to various sections of the country for Division Two, some of the grounds are not up to the standard that the GAA require.
“The GAA have a set of regulations that you get and there are certain dug-outs that subs have to sit in, and this must happen and that must happen, but it doesn’t happen. And there is nothing done about it.”
So, how can the GAA hierarchy be shown the light? “I think the first thing is to admit it . . . I don’t have the answers but with Division Two there is definitely two divisions within that division.”
O’Loughlin voiced a similar opinion. “There are imbalances there. The sooner we realise they have to be addressed, the better for hurling. Some of the strongholds will grow weak. Colm Bonnar said it last year that it would be to the detriment of Wexford to stay in Division Two.”
And for Clare to lose, despite all their progress at under-21 level, and be forced to spend a third year on the lower plain, O’Loughlin believes, could prove equally detrimental to a county that contested an All-Ireland final as recently as 2002.
LIMERICK (SH v Clare): N Quaid; D Reale, G OMahoney, T Condon; W McNamara, S Hickey, D Breen; D OGrady, P Browne; D Hannon, R McCarthy, J Ryan; S Tobin, K Downes, G Mulcahy.
