Great Hurling Championship but.........

[Luksta]

In my opinion they need to get revamp the entire structure!

Two groups with teams seeded, top two and the end of group games in each group progress to the All-ireland semi finals.

At the end of the day who really cares about the provincial championships apart from Tipp people that is.

Oh i'm not so sure an open draw is the way forward.
Youse Wexford folk looked damn pleased with yourselves last time you won Leinster 
In hurling Leinster is a dream for Dublin, just look at the u21s when they won a few weeks ago. i means the world to a county trying to improve but an asses roar away from an all ireland.
Look at Sligo this year. Take away the provinces and that sort of thing goes out the window.
For me, and it's been moted more and more, get Galway and Antrim into Leinster, i think it'd do them both good aswell as the Leinster championship. [would need to be renamed] ... give every county two chances, if anything i think the league could be ditched. do we need a league + provincial + all Ireland series? The league is the weak link if you ask me.

Does the league not suffice as a time to try out new tactics and also give players a chance to make the panel in the run up to the provincials?

that was my understanding of it..but i can see your points..what exactly does winning the league mean.

it doesnt get a team anywhere in the all-ireland or in the provincials as far as im aware though i could be wrong.

a total restructuring of the system is in order but according to the pundits it may not take place next year..who knows

[tayto]

Well i'm a fan of the league but in a packed calender maybe the league is something that could give way, only if someone can come up with a better championship format.  then maybe have a longer more drawn out provincial + all ireland series and allow clubs more weekends during the summer. overall less games maybe, but more meaningful ones.

[Punxsutawney Fergal]

Well i'm a fan of the league but in a packed calender maybe the league is something that could give way, only if someone can come up with a better championship format.  then maybe have a longer more drawn out provincial + all ireland series and allow clubs more weekends during the summer. overall less games maybe, but more meaningful ones.

Why not adopt the same format as the Camogie, they play in a two group format but retain the provincial championship as an add-on to the All-Ireland series. I'm sure there could be some way of tweaking it so that the provincial could still mean something in terms of the All-Ireland

[timmykelleher]

Put Kilkenny into Munster.
Let them try it for a few years .
If they find it too tough put them back into Leinster.

[tayto]

See Tom Humphories in the IT the other day suggesting regional teams.

Brought that up meself on here but what about an Ulster and Connacht team, minus Antrim and Galway players?

Would they be able to challenge established counties? Obviously the ring and rackard cups woul dhave to be played off earlier in the year, which is a problem.

[GalwayBayBoy]

Then you have people claiming that Galway are the saviours of it all, despite the fact that when Offaly run Kilkenny close for 57 mins and concede ten points in the last fifteen to lose by thirteen it's a valiant show from a plucky underdog, but when Galway do the more or less the same only three points better (run KK close for 60 minutes and concede ten to lose by ten) it's all about how close Galway came and how they're not far off the mark. This after Galway got the nice gerrymandered qualifier group deliberately laid out to make sure they didn't have to face into two loseable games just in case the poor dears mightn't get the bye into the quarters they pretend they don't want but secretly won't let the GAA deprive them of.

They probably give Galway an allowance as along with Cork they are the side who has given Kilkenny the most trouble since the turn of the millenium. No disrespct to Offaly but in the past few years they've just been crushed every time by Kilkenny. Even this year when Offaly put in a good first half against the cats the game was all but over 6 or 7 minutes into the second half and it was a procession after that. Now Galway have got some trimmings off Kilkenny too but have also beaten them twice and were neck and neck with them going into the 62nd minute this year.

And if you have proof of gerrymandered groups then I suggest you take it to the GAA.

[Punxsutawney Fergal]

Put Kilkenny into Munster.
Let them try it for a few years .
If they find it too tough put them back into Leinster.

Stupid idea but to be honest I'd love to see it just so KK could prove that they would dominate Munster as they do Leinster. Munster teams are slipping back further behind KK but in their own tunnel visioned mind they can't admit it.

To be honest Munster would never agree to any changes in the championship concerning the removal of the Munster championship. I think they should leave Munster alone and let them continue with what they have.

Enter Antrim and Galway into Leinster but play the championship on a league format with the top two going into the Leinster/Connacht/Ulster final

Kilkenny
Galway
Wexford
Dublin
Offaly
Antrim
Laois
Westmeath

[tayto]

I think playing the provinces as a league would see the end of the NHL. which is not necessarily a bad thing. Otherwise i think they need to link league positions to the all ireland somehow. Someone suggested on KKcats that league position could dictate who plays prelim rounds and who gets home advantage. Sounds like a good idea to me, anything to boost the league would be welcome.

[Lone Shark]

Then you have people claiming that Galway are the saviours of it all, despite the fact that when Offaly run Kilkenny close for 57 mins and concede ten points in the last fifteen to lose by thirteen it's a valiant show from a plucky underdog, but when Galway do the more or less the same only three points better (run KK close for 60 minutes and concede ten to lose by ten) it's all about how close Galway came and how they're not far off the mark. This after Galway got the nice gerrymandered qualifier group deliberately laid out to make sure they didn't have to face into two loseable games just in case the poor dears mightn't get the bye into the quarters they pretend they don't want but secretly won't let the GAA deprive them of.

They probably give Galway an allowance as along with Cork they are the side who has given Kilkenny the most trouble since the turn of the millenium. No disrespct to Offaly but in the past few years they've just been crushed every time by Kilkenny. Even this year when Offaly put in a good first half against the cats the game was all but over 6 or 7 minutes into the second half and it was a procession after that. Now Galway have got some trimmings off Kilkenny too but have also beaten them twice and were neck and neck with them going into the 62nd minute this year.

And if you have proof of gerrymandered groups then I suggest you take it to the GAA.

I'm not trying to argue here that we've put it up to Kilkenny - we haven't. However On 57 minutes we were losing 1-15 to 1-12 - like I said, three points worse then and at the finish to what Galway did. I know we were never going to win, but it's very annoying to listen to people thinking that Galway are somehow a top tier hurling team just because they did marginally better.

As for the gerrymandered groups, well I think it's fair to say that the only two teams who could potentially upset the apple cart for any of the "top 8" are Offaly and Dublin. The groups were rigged to ensure that Galway couldn't get either of these, but instead were guaranteed to get the 11th and 12th ranked sides, as well as making sure that ye had no potential of getting a team that actually won a game in Munster like we did. None of that was open draw - I personally would call that gerrymandered, yes.

There were several people in Offaly suggesting we should have let Laois win the first day since Galway and Clare was the easy group to be in. I don't agree with the morality of it, but you can't argue with the logic.

[GalwayBayBoy]

but it's very annoying to listen to people thinking that Galway are somehow a top tier hurling team just because they did marginally better.

I imagine that people say Galway are a top tier hurling team simply because they have reached 2 All-Ireland finals in the past 6 years. That and all the underage titles they've won. Personally I don't agree with that as you actually have to win an All-Ireland IMO to be considered a top tier team.

Then again most people would say Waterford are a top tier team even though they haven't even reached an All-Ireland final yet.

Swings and roundabouts I guess.

[INDIANA]

if galway had the 2 cannings this year and fergal moore hadn't of gotten injured that's some team galway have. joe canning is the target man they don't have. What they need is a big number 11. Iarla Tannion is the only man i 've seen break even with tommy walsh in 2 years.With the likes of alan kerins- kerril wade and damien hayes restored up front. they'd trouble anyone.
if loughnane adopts more conventional methods of management- galway might be the only team to trouble the cats next year. It will be 2-3 years before Cork are back- waterford may well be gone- forget the rest. the likes of shefflin are only 26-27 -that's the frightening thing.
People keep talking baout the standard of leinster. people forget this is possibly the greatest team in history-they'd walk munster as well.

[Lone Shark]

but it's very annoying to listen to people thinking that Galway are somehow a top tier hurling team just because they did marginally better.

I imagine that people say Galway are a top tier hurling team simply because they have reached 2 All-Ireland finals in the past 6 years. That and all the underage titles they've won. Personally I don't agree with that as you actually have to win an All-Ireland IMO to be considered a top tier team.

Then again most people would say Waterford are a top tier team even though they haven't even reached an All-Ireland final yet.

Swings and roundabouts I guess.

I will accept that as a bookie I have to have a bias towards the here and now, rather than the context. I would imagine that short of KK and Cork, Galway have probably been the next best team of the last 6 years, but not in 2007. In 2005 ye had Ger Farragher scoring 2-9, Ollie Canning was arguably the best full back line player in Ireland and Eugene Cloonan was still a huge threat. The 2007 Galway had none of these (yes ye had Cloonan, but not in any real sense), and personally I would have rated them as roughly equal to Wexford and behind all the Munster teams and only three or four points ahead of us. nothing that has happened since suggests that this is wrong. This is why I did feel slightly aggrieved that the draw protected them and in doing so kept Offaly away from what I perceived to be one of the more "scalpable" teams. I'm not saying we would have done so, but I'd have fancied our chances a lot more than i did against Tipp or Cork - and lo and behold I think what happened in Ennis justifies that.

Obviously Galway 2008 will be a completely different team, and yes if you add in the two Cannings, find a full back from somewhere and give John Lee another year of development and they will be a much stronger force - that still doesn't mean there should be a qualifier structure designed to make sure they get a handy draw.

[Pull Hard Hes No Relation]

Lone Shark in fairness I would put Galway well ahead of Offaly at the minute - was at the Cork V Offaly game in the park and in a word Offaly were brutal! As one of the Cork players said to me afterwards Down would have put up almost as good a show and that's saying something the way Down have been going the past couple of years.

I agree with some of the other sentiments particularly the fact that Offaly have been hard done by with the qualifier system in terms of the number of games they have had to play away from home and also when you point out that Corker go out of their way to faciltiate Galway in terms of championship structure.

For me the big issue is that you probably have 3-4 teams in the top tier Kilkenny, Cork and Waterford along with Limerick, should Limerick be there based on one good year? Hard to know but when you look at it they got to the League Final last year, ran Cork to a point and then followed it up with their performance this year so they have been there or thereabouts in the past few years.

The next tier would be Galway, Tipp, Clare and Wexford - not necessarily in that order all capable on their day of beating the top tier particularly if they catch them off gaurd but unlikely to string two victories over the top tier teams in a row which would generally be required to win the All Ireland.

Finally you would have Dublin, Offaly, Laois and Antrim - being honest I see the most potential in Dublin among this group and expect them and indeed Offaly perhaps top replace Wexford in the second tier of teams. If you were being brutal honest the championship would be restricted to top six of Kilkenny, Cork, Waterford, Galway, Tipp and Clare/Wexford and run on a league format top four for semi finals.

Then Offaly, Dublin, Laois, Antrim, Westmeath, Down, Kildare, Carlow and Kerry could compete in a strong Christy Ring with the remainder in the Nicky Rackard - at least this way the second tier counties would have something to really aim for with winning the Christy Ring securing passage to the All Ireland proper for a period of 2 years with the bottom team each year in the All-Ireland dropping down assuming they had played at least two consecutive years in the top tier championship.

Realistically speaking hard to see the "old order" changing in the next five years unless Galway make a breakthrough on the back of their under-age success if not expect Kilkenny and Cork to share out the All Ireland for the forseeable future (Kilkenny more than Cork).

[the procastenator]

great championship stop being negative gimps, enjoy it while it lasts,


gipes

[Lone Shark]

I don't think the Cork game was a fair reflection of where we are at the moment. We have a tendency to make a complete hames of things in the really crucial games, hence our worst performances by a country mile this year came in Cork and in the relegation playoff in Nenagh. Other than that we weren't actually that bad this year. We didn't get great results, but we didn't get that many hammerings either.


Galway would be short favourites, of course. They would also be a lot more beatable than Tipp or Cork, who we were automatically put in with.