Richie Hogan Revealed His Hatred Of The Hurling Championship System

[MoChara]

Richie Hogan Revealed His Hatred Of The Hurling Championship System
Richie Hogan Revealed His Hatred Of The Hurling Championship System
Richie Hogan was on Newstalk's Off the Ball on Monday evening to talk about Kilkenny making their 15th All-Ireland Final in 18 years.

Once he had addressed the little matter of those blisters which he sustained during the game against Waterford, Hogan went on to speak about the current Championship format.

The 2014 Hurler of the Year revealed that he 'hates' the current format and would much prefer to play a match every two weeks

I don't like the system at all to be honest with you. I hate it. I'd rather have a match every two weeks.

This year we've played three games and we're in an All-Ireland final. Last year after three games we were in a Leinster final. It's a stark contrast.

If I had a choice I'd love to play at least six or seven games in the Championship but you don't have a choice.

It's pretty obvious, what players want is games.
Hogan outlined the ridiculousness of the situation which sees some counties go months without a game in between the end of the League and the beginning of the Championship.

If you look at top sports, you look at the Premiership, they're all league based.

Whereas ours is Championship based which is tough to do. It has advantages in the sense that you only have to play four games to win it but it has disadvantages in the sense that you're waiting five weeks without a game.

The time between our last League game and our first Championship game I think was 12 weeks. Three months in the middle of the year with no game whatsoever.

Some players might not even have taken part in the League and start training 12 weeks before the Championship and would still be in top condition which is not right.

It's hard thing to change because there's tradition and all that. From a player's point of view, you'd love more games and less training. But that's just the way it is and you've got to accept it.
He also detailed what he sees as a possible alternative.

A system that was suggested to me was that if you had 12 teams in the Hurling Championship and you had two groups of six. Each team plays each other twice, once at home and once away. You have to abolish the league and then it goes straight through to a knockout. Something like an NFL sort of a system.

People talk a lot about the Munster Championship, but it's not about the Munster Championship. It's about the match. If Kilkenny are playing Dublin or Kilkenny are playing Wexford, it's not about what's at stake it's about the rivalry. Regardless of whether you're playing for a Leinster Championship or the League or the All-Ireland, it doesn't matter.

The important thing would be to have a solid intercounty season and a solid club season that do not overlap. Our County Championship match is off this week because the county minors drew and they're playing next week instead. So our club players will go maybe 10 weeks without a game which is ridiculous. They talk a lot about grassroots but that is the grass rootsand maybe they're abused a little bit.
Hogan compared the current Championship situation to a truncated Premier League season which featured the FA Cup as the main attraction for half of the season.

Could you imagine a Premier League where it was cut in half and you only had 10 teams and it was played from September to Christmas and then after that you had the FA Cup.

http://www.balls.ie/gaa/richie-hogan-off-the-ball-championship/304522

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"This year we've played three games and we're in an All-Ireland final. Last year after three games we were in a Leinster final. It's a stark contrast"

last year was unusual, they usually only have 3/4 games. that's what you get when your the best team in the land, tough shit! deal with it!

[deiseach]

Player on a team that beats the tar out of everyone wants more teams to beat the tar out of.

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[Zulu]

"This year we've played three games and we're in an All-Ireland final. Last year after three games we were in a Leinster final. It's a stark contrast"

last year was unusual, they usually only have 3/4 games. that's what you get when your the best team in the land, tough shit! deal with it!

Eh? You understand the point he's making? He's dead right, we have an elite level of sport in inter county football and hurling yet between both of them you can count on one hand the amount of really big games we have between teams where both have a reasonable chance of winning.

Our leagues are half a step above challenge matches and while the hurling provincials can be decent we actually only have one of them (Munster) and that's only any good because we have a group of 5 high quality teams. In other words put good teams in action against each other in important games and you'll get a good competition. Add Kilkenny, Dublin and Galway to the 5 Munster teams and you would have plenty of very good games every year rather than snooze-fest both championships have largely been this year.

I've heard a good deal of revisionism regarding recent hurling championships in the past few weeks where commentators claimed we've had some great championships. We haven't actually had many with a lot of them saved by great finals and one or two good semi's. The majority of the last 4 or 5 championships have not been markedly better than this year. I think there's a trend developing in both codes where the championship is not delivering the quality we should get.

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i get what your saying, but any work or change, should be done to improve the "weaker" counties, not the teams that are already at a top level, THAT would improve our championships.

[deiseach]

i get what your saying, but any work or change, should be done to improve the "weaker" counties, not the teams that are already at a top level, THAT would improve our championships.

Exactly. Until that happens, deckchairs and the Titanic etc. Now, he definitely has a point that the gap between games is daft. But the solution to that is to compress the timescale of the championship, not give Kilkenny a half-dozen extra turkey shoots.

[johnneycool]

Posted this on another thread;

I see Richie Hogan is calling for a revamp of the All Ireland/Qualifier structures. When a lad with a few All Irelands, from the best team ever, is saying it then you know something is off.

Ah see poor Richie is an idealist, he's not the one looking to maintain their own wee empire in Leinster and more importantly Munster.

Whilst I've always loved going to Munster championship games (well not so much now with the back door) its a big money spinner for the Munster Council and the associated counties which would be somewhat diluted with open draws or AI round robin set ups, so you'll not see any of those 5 hurling counties voting for change. You can add in Kilkenny in Leinster as they're currently well served by a easy enough route to an AI semi, so I can't see change coming from within the hurling elite.

[MoChara]

It can only be good for the sport to have more high profile matches develops more interest nationally

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It can only be good for the sport to have more high profile matches develops more interest nationally

not when there is only 2 or 3 REAL contenders for the All Ireland title. in terms of quality it would mean the rich get richer and the poor get poorer!
not to mention that the county commitment for players is already crazy. where do clubs get a look in? lets not forget these lads are amateurs who have to get up for work the next day. he wants a kick in the hole for comparing it to the premier league or the FA cup!

[MoChara]

Surely having a few matches against top teams not only bloods the weaker counties but gets more people out for match days, and the way it is it doesn't look like the top 3 are changing anytime soon anyway.
I can see your point with it pushing the club games thinner again though.

[Zulu]

i get what your saying, but any work or change, should be done to improve the "weaker" counties, not the teams that are already at a top level, THAT would improve our championships.

But surely it's not an either or situation?

Exactly. Until that happens, deckchairs and the Titanic etc. Now, he definitely has a point that the gap between games is daft. But the solution to that is to compress the timescale of the championship, not give Kilkenny a half-dozen extra turkey shoots.

While in a different format Kilkenny might get a few more games they'll most likely win other counties will get more genuinely competitive games too. No format should do anything other than give the best team as fair a chance of winning the competition as any other team, the current one doesn't do that.

Many weaker hurling counties are weaker because they have no real club infrastructure so making them competitive at IC level as little or nothing to do with the IC scene. They will only compete at the top table when they have a decent number of clubs. Look at Waterford for example, clubs like Clashmore, Stradbally, Dungarvan etc. are all traditionally football clubs now providing hurlers to Waterford. Even Kerry or Westmeath won't consistently compete with the main counties until the pick from a broader base and I don't se how that will be hampered by changing the All Ireland format.

[deiseach]

Increasing the number of games played in the championship will hamper the development of the game in counties like Kerry and Westmeath. I remember back in the 90's and early 00's how Down and Derry respectively threatened to make a breakthrough of sorts. Each in their turn had an up-and-down relationship with the top division of the NHL where, more often than not, they would get absolutely murdered. It was horrible watching it at times. I dread to think of the atmosphere on team buses as they made the long trip home from yet another pounding.  And that was just in the glorified challenge competition. If we are to take Richie Hogan at face value, he'd like to introduce a system whereby he gets to do that to a number of counties twice a year in high summer. It's nothing short of sadism.

[Zulu]

Now maybe we're taking his comments differently but I don't envisage Kerry or Westmeath playing against Kilkenny. I would see it as the 5 Munster counties plus Kilkenny, Dublin and Galway as definite and Wexford, Laois and Offaly potentially in it. I think Richie mentioned 12 teams alright but I'm sure that was just a figure thrown out based on the number of, the roughly, 'competitive' teams. For me, it wouldn't go much beyond the top 8.

I see no reason why we can't look at the Kerry and Westmeaths in isolation from the top tier. Give the top tier the competition they deserve and look at building the lower tier teams in a progressive developmental way.

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again, id ask where does the club come into all this?! how do schedule all these fixtures?!
hes talking about playing 10 to 15 inter county games every year!