The unseemly public spat between Ger Loughnane and Eamon Cregan after last Sunday's All-Ireland hurling final was unfortunate and also untimely. It should not, however, be allowed to take anything away from the splendid occasion which brought the hurling season to an end . As soon as the dust in the square settles, it would be appropriate for these two consummate hurling men to declare a ceasefire so that the real merit of the year's events can be assessed in a calm and considered atmosphere.
First it would be appropriate to consider the new National League format in the light of experience. It surely is a pity that a competition which produced some really splendid hurling in its early stages should have lost its focus towards the end as championship action allowed players and spectators alike to take their eyes off the sliotar, so to speak. While the experiment is due to have a second trial, there is a view abroad that some attention should be given straightaway to an altered calendar of events.
An earlier start to the National League and thus an earlier finish should be considered. No matter what is done, a repeat of the situation in which one county put out a side including only one member of their "first" team for a crucial league tie cannot be tolerated again, regardless of who is playing whom, when or where.
When it comes to considering the All-Ireland Championship and its outcome, one has to admit that, in spite of serious reservations earlier on, the experiment of allowing beaten Munster and Leinster finalists a "back door" re-entry did not end in the kind of farce which some of us feared.
Galway had mixed emotions about the experiment and that mixture turned to hostility in some quarters when they were beaten by Kilkenny in the quarter-final in a fine match in Thurles. Kilkenny's subsequent defeat allied to the fact that Wexford, the winning Leinster champions, also failed to make the All-Ireland final, softened a few coughs in hurling's traditional heartland.
When Clare completed the double over Tipperary, there was a certain amount of delight among those of us who had scoffed in the first place. It was not lost on everybody, however, that Clare's minors had come into the final via the tradesman's entrance to beat Galway. Few, if any, will begrudge them that sweet victory while many will regret at the same time that the result robbed us of an historic occasion. I refer to the fact that had Galway beaten Clare, the Irish Press Cup would have been presented to the Galway captain, Eoin McDonagh, by his father Joe, the present president of the GAA. Slagging matches notwithstanding, the experiment of allowing beaten teams back into what constituted a totally new competition was also a sporting one, as well as being a financial success. It will surely lead to its retention for another year.
What remains in doubt, however, is what kind of effect allowing beaten teams back into what has always been a knock-out competition will have on the authenticity of the Munster and Leinster championships and their place in the affections of their long-time supporters.
It would be too naive to suggest that any team in either province would "throw" a final in order to take advantage of the situation. Yet, what is at stake is the public perception of the competition as a whole. Perhaps the GAA should go the whole hog and declare a properly structured, seeded open draw. The accent here is on he word seeded. This method could be devised to keep strong teams apart for at least two rounds and might give weaker emerging counties a chance of top-class hurling experience and the opportunity of causing a few upsets while at the same time spreading the hurling gospel that little bit wider.
Galway broke a hurling mould which had lasted almost half-a-century when they won in 1980. Offaly smashed an even older mould soon afterwards and Clare have now joined hurling's elite with their second win in three years while Wexford have also broken out of their self-imposed straight-jacket. Hurling has never been in better hands.
If Monaghan can win a junior all-Ireland hurling title, albeit with help from "the legendary Joe Hayes" and other blow-ins, who is to say how far hurling can go? To get back to that spat between two such distinguished hurlers as Ger and Eamon, it represents nevertheless an undesirable trend. To coin a well worn but now seldom used GAA mantra, "the whole thing smacked of a foreign code." Having scoffed at such chauvinism in my time, I say now that the phrase has some value and that those of us who appreciate the entire ethos of the GAA should be careful in how we handle what we have inherited.
One of the glories of Gaelic games is the manner in which supporters of rival teams mix freely and with friendly tolerance of each other in spite of any animosities that might otherwise exist. Perhaps we should all be more guarded in what we say in or immediately after the "heat of battle." Certainly we don't want to see the GAA slip as swiftly down the road as Rugby Union when players from one team deliberately seek out players from the opposition in a nightclub after the match in order to "sort out some uncompleted business" - as happened in France last week.
I write this in Aachen in Germany at a streetside bistro where many grown men are gathered around an open-air game of chess. They seem to be taking it very seriously indeed, but so far I haven't heard a single player shout. I wonder do they know what they're missing?
