Richie Hogan Revealed His Hatred Of The Hurling Championship System

[Zulu]

Well I would think that's relatively simple. We start our IC season in January/Feburary but play (maybe) a half dozen proper games before late August. If we started our IC season in mid March and finished late August we would have 5 & 1/2 months to play a proper IC competition with the rest of the year for the clubs. NFL is America's biggest sport and one of the biggest in the world yet it only takes about 5 months to play with each team getting a minimum of 16 games.

[johnneycool]

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.

Yeah we took some hammerings, but we also managed to beat Offaly in Tullamore, Kilkenny in Nowlan park (relegating them to Div2), Clare at home in Ballygalget and Tipp only for the late introduction of a Mr Nicky English beat us by two points in Ballycran, it wasn't all doom and gloom. Waterford also relied on the free taking of Paul Flynn to beat us also in Ballygalget.
But then again, I think there were 6 teams in a Div1A and 6 teams in a Div1B, which was good for the likes of us and if a similar format was introduced again would be good for the likes of Carlow, Westmeath, Kerry, Antrim  and so on.
But hey, who gives a f**k for them, they'll not bring a big support to Croke Park for a hurling game.

Richie in all fairness made an off the cuff remark, its not as if he was suggesting a whole new format, just a wee sound bite for the journalists who need to fill column inches to pay the bills.

[finbar o tool]

Well I would think that's relatively simple. We start our IC season in January/Feburary but play (maybe) a half dozen proper games before late August. If we started our IC season in mid March and finished late August we would have 5 & 1/2 months to play a proper IC competition with the rest of the year for the clubs. NFL is America's biggest sport and one of the biggest in the world yet it only takes about 5 months to play with each team getting a minimum of 16 games.

wait a second, we currently start our IC season in Jan/Feb, and it runs until september. and we play half a dozen proper games.
and you want each team to play a minimum of 16 games each, in a period of time from march to august?!
im scratching my head a bit here, surely you would need more time if you played way more games?!?

that would be a MASSIVE restructure of not only the IC scene but also the club scene in every county. and for what?
i think the system needs to be reviewed and there must be a better way to improve things across the board.

[johnneycool]

Well I would think that's relatively simple. We start our IC season in January/Feburary but play (maybe) a half dozen proper games before late August. If we started our IC season in mid March and finished late August we would have 5 & 1/2 months to play a proper IC competition with the rest of the year for the clubs. NFL is America's biggest sport and one of the biggest in the world yet it only takes about 5 months to play with each team getting a minimum of 16 games.

wait a second, we currently start our IC season in Jan/Feb, and it runs until september. and we play half a dozen proper games.
and you want each team to play a minimum of 16 games each, in a period of time from march to august?!
im scratching my head a bit here, surely you would need more time if you played way more games?!?

that would be a MASSIVE restructure of not only the IC scene but also the club scene in every county. and for what?
i think the system needs to be reviewed and there must be a better way to improve things across the board.

Far too many 3 week (and sometimes more) gaps between games in the current format, a two week gap is plenty.

[finbar o tool]

i agree there is sometimes too much of a gap between games and that needs to be looked at.
but loads more games wont help. its a huge commitment to be an IC player these days, they also have to play with their clubs. some lads are playing college hurling or even under 21 too depending on their age. then they have go out and make a living for themselves too lets not forget. throw in a young family into the equation and it gets even more complicated for players.
you have an argument from some saying 'burn out' is a real issue for some players and another argument saying they should be playing more.
tightening up the time frame of the championship might help all this i think.

[Zulu]

Well I would think that's relatively simple. We start our IC season in January/Feburary but play (maybe) a half dozen proper games before late August. If we started our IC season in mid March and finished late August we would have 5 & 1/2 months to play a proper IC competition with the rest of the year for the clubs. NFL is America's biggest sport and one of the biggest in the world yet it only takes about 5 months to play with each team getting a minimum of 16 games.

wait a second, we currently start our IC season in Jan/Feb, and it runs until september. and we play half a dozen proper games.
and you want each team to play a minimum of 16 games each, in a period of time from march to august?!
im scratching my head a bit here, surely you would need more time if you played way more games?!?

that would be a MASSIVE restructure of not only the IC scene but also the club scene in every county. and for what?
i think the system needs to be reviewed and there must be a better way to improve things across the board.

Maybe I'm not making myself clear but I didn't mean to say the hurling season should have 16 games. What I am saying is we should have a competitive season for both football and hurling that provides more high quality meaningful games rather than seeing a handful each year. It makes no sense to start our season in January with mickey mouse pre-season tournaments, then a half-hearted league, followed by provincial championships that are no longer as important as they were. IMO we should have one competition, like the NFL, so that all games help or hinder you win the All Ireland. The weaker teams have their own competition (in hurling anyway) played on similar lines.

If you do that, get the Fitz, Sigerson and club All Irelands played before we start and don't allow U21's play both senior and U21 at IC level so that both senior and U21 can be played in parallel then you can get everything done by August with nobody worrying about burnout. Clubs can play leagues during this time and then their championships when IC is finished.

[deiseach]

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.

Brian Cody has obviously been reading this thread.

Cody: "the All-Ireland championship has to be condensed"
08 September 2015

Brian Cody agrees that the All-Ireland SHC needs to be played off quicker to alleviate pressure on clubs.

Even though the current system seems to favour the KIlkenny manager perfectly - he has led the Noresiders to eleven All-Irelands! - he admits that the time for change is nigh:

"Look, I'm not going to come up with a solution, I don't have a solution. But what I do know is this; the mix with club and intercounty is not as it needs to be," the James Stephens man says in The Irish Examiner.

"Club players are suffering and intercounty players are club players. There's 34 different lads on our panel and players coming in and out as needs be. But they are all club players, every Galway player there is a club player. The game is about club, club, club and it has to be. The mix is wrong, is all I can say about it.

"It's not enough just to leave things as it is. The time to change in everything you do is when you are going really well and things are good and strong [Sunday's] match was a great game, the previous semi-final was a great game, last year's All-Ireland finals were great games. That's the time to see what can we do better.

"If you dilute the genuineness or absolute importance of the club scene — and people pontificate about it and they talk about it — but the All-Ireland championship has to be condensed into a shorter period of time in some way."