Replying To Pikeman96: "Genuine question, because it's been mentioned here a few times. Relates to the proposal of some time back to remove certain counties from the National Hurling League, if they had five or less club hurling teams.
Part of the proposal was that they'd go into "an extended Lory Meagher/Nickey Rackard Cup" and part of the problem was that we never heard what exactly this extension would look like, but we'll leave that aside for now.
Instead, consider a county with four hurling clubs. That's probably somewhere from 80 to 120 active adult hurlers in the county. And probably 25 to 30 of them involved with the county squad, in the League during February & March, and then the Lory Meagher or Nickey Rackard during April & May.
Then, when the inter-county campaigns conclude (both codes), club football takes by far the prime position in those counties. That doesn't leave a lot of room for club hurling or the "ordinary" player (i.e. a club hurler who's not part of the county squad).
Say one club has 20 or 21 players. Four or five of them are part of the county squad. They couldn't field a team for a club match during the inter-county campaign if any two or three others at all were unavailable for any reason.
So, devil's advocate - would it not on the face make sense to have them running club competitions in which all hurlers can play during February/March/April, instead of only their county hurlers getting games during that time? And then pick a county squad based on form during those club competitions, to take part in some sort of extended Lory Meagher or Nickey Rackard during say May & June?
Genuine question. What am I missing here?"
This was the idea behind the proposal but once the "It's a disgrace' brigade get going they're hard stop and any kind of discourse goes out the window. TAking a step back to takes steps forward can be the right path sometimes but it needs to be sold to the people involved and it's much easier for people to scream outrage. For what it's worth I don't know if the idea of building up clubs at the expense of playing in the league would have worked out long term but it was an interesting idea which was screamed down without any real discourse being allowed
Surely the easiest thing is for Cavan to go to New York at the start of next season (same weekend as NY v Roscommon in Connacht championship) - if New York beat them - then NY go into the Nicky Rackard cup. If the lose then back to the Lory Meagher
The top 3 in the (home) round robin (or Rackard of LM) then progress to semi finals with NY.
If NY cant do two matches in Ireland in a week - then have a home final with an away final v NY two week later.
Replying To Overdahill: "This was the idea behind the proposal but once the "It's a disgrace' brigade get going they're hard stop and any kind of discourse goes out the window. TAking a step back to takes steps forward can be the right path sometimes but it needs to be sold to the people involved and it's much easier for people to scream outrage. For what it's worth I don't know if the idea of building up clubs at the expense of playing in the league would have worked out long term but it was an interesting idea which was screamed down without any real discourse being allowed"
I thought it was an interesting idea too, that was unfortunately shouted down before being considered properly. I strongly believe that the big mistake was not outlining at the start what the "extended" Lory Meagher (and possibly Nickey Rackard) would look like. If it had been attractive enough, the idea could have been sold to the counties that way.
Would have been good too to have some novel proposal for the new club action in those counties during the National League time. The counties that would have been affected were Fermanagh, Cavan, Leitrim, Longford, and Louth. For example, the clubs from Leitrim/Cavan/Fermanagh could have played some sort of cross-county competition, where there'd be little more than an hour's travel at most for any club for any fixture.
GAA HQ could have thrown in a few quid to help with expenses, or to put up an attractive prize. The hurlers of inter-county standard in each county would still have been able to play against the hurlers of inter-county standard in other counties, and the developing players in each county would have been able to play against them too.
Anyway, was all shouted down before it was ever properly considered at all....
Replying To Pikeman96: "I thought it was an interesting idea too, that was unfortunately shouted down before being considered properly. I strongly believe that the big mistake was not outlining at the start what the "extended" Lory Meagher (and possibly Nickey Rackard) would look like. If it had been attractive enough, the idea could have been sold to the counties that way.
Would have been good too to have some novel proposal for the new club action in those counties during the National League time. The counties that would have been affected were Fermanagh, Cavan, Leitrim, Longford, and Louth. For example, the clubs from Leitrim/Cavan/Fermanagh could have played some sort of cross-county competition, where there'd be little more than an hour's travel at most for any club for any fixture.
GAA HQ could have thrown in a few quid to help with expenses, or to put up an attractive prize. The hurlers of inter-county standard in each county would still have been able to play against the hurlers of inter-county standard in other counties, and the developing players in each county would have been able to play against them too.
Anyway, was all shouted down before it was ever properly considered at all...."
There are cross boarder club competitions. They are called Tain Og (underage) and Chu Chulainn leagues for adult level. It was brought in by Martin Fogerty and hurling development officers across the northern half of the country. Been highly successful and brought hurling on a lot in some quarters.
Report for previous years: https://www.gaa.ie/hurling/news/cuchulainn-league-finals-provide-plenty-of-excitement