Give me hurling every time

1954 was an enjoyable year for a leading British sportswriter by the name of David Jack. He was there when Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile, there at the inauguration of UEFA when it was formed in Basel and there too to watch West Germany beat Hungary in the World Cup final.
But, when asked to select his personal sporting highlight of the year, Jack raised an eyebrow or two with his Empire News headline: ‘Give me hurling every time’.
The Englishman had been holidaying in Dublin that August with his wife and happened upon the All-Ireland hurling semi-final between Cork and Galway. Jack, there and then, fell in love with the game and longed for the following summer when he returned to Ireland to take in the Munster championship.
After an excruciatingly dull few sporting months inter-county hurling returns this weekend when Justin McCarthy’s Limerick hurlers entertain UL at Claughaun - that game is sure to draw a crowd. But while no expense will be spared this season on the Passage man as he prepares to guide Limerick to silverware for the first time since 1997 please spare a thought for club hurlers on Shannonside.
Ten years ago this month the report of the GAA’s Club Fixtures Work Group recommended a modest target of 20 matches a season for club players. At the time the work group found that just one county had reached this figure (Cork) while half of the counties were providing 12 matches or fewer and 27 per cent of club players were getting fewer than 10 matches. The GAA Director General Liam Mulvihill at the time even found himself moved to describe the provision of fixtures for clubs as “shameful”.
Trouble was very little was done about it, especially in Limerick.
Last year, between league and championship, Limerick’s senior hurling clubs took the field a minimum of ten times and a maximum of 13 times. It’s worth noting that seven of that figure related to games in the All County Hurling League which few if any clubs take seriously - indeed Adare, who would eventually to go on win the county title, never won a game in the division and the experience proved worthless to Ger O’Loughlin as he endeavoured to prepare his team for the championship - in 2008 Adare played seven league games and five in the championship.
By comparison look at Tipperary. Toomevara, who Adare beat in the Munster semi-final, also played seven league games before embarking on a run to the county championship which involved 11 games.
Surely some tweaking of the club hurling schedule needs to be done. Surely players training for months on end deserve more than a maximum of five competitive outings?

Brian McDonnell