Do traditional hurling counties honestly want hurling to grow or stay as is?

Im not here to debate Donl Ogs comments.

As a Clare hurling fan I can recall from a young age the devastation of being regularly beaten out he gate in big hurling matches. Decades later we are riding the crest of a wave and enjoying every minute of it. There is no easy route to top level hurling. It literally takes decades to move up to the top. My question is what are other counties doing for themselves in promoting hurling rather than turning to the so called top counties an blaming them for their demise. Ultimately there has to be a desire and love for the game and a genuine desire to promote the game within the county to make it happen.

What do you propose the top counties do? Is providing top level entertainment week in week out not enough to encourage it elsewhere??

The whole discourse about hurling is bizarre, every week the commentators try to outdo themselves with hyperbolic guff: "greatest game on earth, what a spectacle, classic Munster championship game for the ages etc." but then in the next breath will say hurling is on the brink of death.

I don't honestly believe Dónal Óg has much more than a boilerplate interest in hurling growing, nor is he obliged to have any interest in it really. I can reassure him that it's utter nonsense to think that Free to Air vs. GAAGO for 2 Munster Championship games will be the deciding factor in whether hurling grows or dies in Meath. It's punditry's version of "Think of the children" .

It's a complete red herring anyway; how come hurling didn't explode in strength countrywide 2 or 3 decades ago solely because provincial games went from almost no coverage to every game?

And one question. What is the measurement used to decide if hurling is growing or not? Is it solely success or is it playing numbers and interest?

Take my county kildare. There are more youngsters than ever playing the game. We have new adult clubs come online this year because underage in those clubs has thrived.

I dont think the situation is as grave as some who have a vested interest would have is believe.

What about football in Killenny? Who is trying to promote that? Ffs. Some of these hurling lads need to be told a few home truths.

"Thats proper munster hurling championship" "Holy moses"

A good game yes. But some of the cliches, nicknames and commentators having sex with their microphones is laughable.

Don't know much about Cusack, but I know he came across as a complete and utter pillock when Cantwell asked him about those comments.

If he represents the hurling fraternity then **** the lot of them.

Cusack is at times worth listening to but he made a right clown of himself with the jibes about Football.

Fair enough he adores Hurling and the culture and riverdance that go with it but equally so a vast majority of people across the country have the same passion if not more so for Football.

James O Donoughue said he wasnt bothered in the slightest about what he thought as he is enthralled by Football and doesnt need to go down slagging other sports to make a point.

Jamsie O Connor mentioned that he was at Clones last Sunday and enjoyed it thoroughly but nothing would top Hurling for him. He's always spoken fairly well on Hurling and even Football when I hear him.

Having made a point earlier regarding the promotion of the game of hurling some of the comments here show football followers hatred of hurling. I can only conclude that football is played by people not skilful enough to play hurling. Gaelic football is a form of soccer using your hands.

This craic about KK not entering the football so what they’ve more clubs playing football than a lot of football counties combined have hurling clubs. The mandarins above in Croke park aren’t doing enough to promote hurling in all counties.

Case in point about the way hurling followers go on. Can't speak about football without classing it as an inferior sport.

It really is off putting and obnoxious.

I think you'll find that it's hurling supporters who have a hatred for football far more than the other way around.

great post. A super eight league format with the top four going into semi finals and bottom one getting relegated would be a thing of beauty and same format all the way down,start in may and finish up first week of september. use the league for your seeded position so that you will get a favourable draw.

The standard of hurling would increase in the joe mcdonagh cup with a top team being relegated. also do wexford not deserve to be in relegated this year with their poor showing same as waterford last year. It's perfectly acceptable to be relegated at club level but not at intercounty level is a bit hypocritical and is serving the elitist view again. the current format is flawed with 3 teams progressing to the playoff stage from groups of 5 and 6.

While you can get relegated from Leinster, it's harder to qualify from Munster, for me that's a fair enough trade off considering the geographical / legacy limitations we're working under

So a team that is unlikely to win asinine match this year and only won one last year gets to stay up because of geography that's insane

Is it that much harder ?1 septic team which then means 3 out of 4 qualify..if you can't get out then I don't think you have many reasons to gripe

I'm from a county not normally noted for its hurling - Tyrone, and I'm not from a hurling background myself. However about 20 years ago, hurling was introduced to my local GAA club starting with some U10 indoor coaching, with an U14 team entered a few years later. It suddenly stopped , but was revived again a few years later thanks to the efforts of a few outsiders that had played hurling when they were young and we're now fielding teams from Go-games to U18 levels. While the majority of our players also play football for us, we have several players whom are also dual players playing football with their "home" club next door.

Some personal observations from my roving eye...

* Hurling in Tyrone at county level is arguably now in its healthiest state that it has been at least in my lifetime. The senior county team is playing at levels this year that it never did previously, while the minor team - which my club had several players on its panel - had a decent run out in the Celtic Challenge tournament.

* At club level, hurling has a fate similar to the highest levels of the intercounty championship whereby a "Big x" dominate and its difficult for others to make a breakthrough. The big two hurling clubs in Tyrone are Dungannon & Carrickmore, and other than the JHC those two clubs have won pretty much every top club title in the county for at least a decade now. There are at present five clubs fielding adult & youth teams as well as another five currently fielding at various youth levels, though it is a bit of a challenge beyond U14 at the moment with just four clubs competing at U16 & five at U18 this year. There's a lot of conflict for dual players in their teenage years being able to give enough time to both codes without also their education and other things inc. other sports like soccer. In saying that, the U14 league & championship has enough clubs to be split over two grades, giving the more middling & weaker hurling teams at that age level games which are not a completely foregone conclusion

* One thing I haven't seen mentioned here yet has been the running of the Táin Óg leagues that operate in Ulster, northern Connacht & northern Leinster which from speaking to some people involved have been very successful in keeping young players interested in the game by grading teams to their ability accordingly. Yes there are some fair distances to be covered when traveling to fixtures, but the games are in general competitive for most involved. It's alright saying to gather 15 boys up for a county league game in a county like Tyrone where there might only be a handful at most of other (established) clubs to play against, but if you're getting thumped by at least 40+ points in most games against them it's not going to keep those players interested. At least in the Táin Óg, that shouldn't be happening unless a club has been seriously misgraded, and as such the players involved are enjoying themselves more.

* Simply throwing money at facilities & coaching into normally non-hurling areas will not & will never work on its own. In most of Ulster, there is simply no legacy of the game which outside of the Glens of Antrim & the southern Ards peninsula is seen as a game played in (most of) Munster, south Leinster & a bit of Galway. There's no cultural element in these places for hurling to the same capacity the likes of Gaelic football has. The phrase "you can take a horse to water but you can't make it drink" springs to mind - you may as well try and introduce them to Olympic Handball or Canadian Football in that regard. Also, guff like "it's de best game in de world boi!" and "football's a game for bad hurlers" just doesn't cut it when trying to convince boys & girls to try and take up hurling or camogie, especially in Gaelic football strongholds. The clubs outside of Ulster's small hurling heartlands that have been the most successful in growing the game in their locality never come out talking such sh*te, instead they sell the game on to young children & their parents in a way to actually make them interested in wanting to play, and that building a successful hurling club up that is able to last generations involves having a love for the game develop that will take a lot of time & people to be involved, rather than be something that flies-by-night thanks to what was in place driven by one or two headstrong people that eventually burned out (which has been the case in the past Tyrone several times) where they eventually cannot take everything on, on their own, and there's no one else to fill the voids.

Yeah, I'd say both hurling & camogie in Tyrone are in a heck of a lot of a better position than they were ten years ago, when there was essentially only 4-5 hurling clubs operating in the county with only two or three teams playing at minor, and camogie was pretty much restricted to the eastern part bordering Armagh & Lough Neagh with a similar number of clubs whereas now the game is starting to grow again in the mid & west parts of the county.

I can't comment about other counties, though I do know Fermanagh have also been trying to develop their own hurling base within their county in the last few years too, for a short while there was only one hurling club in Fermanagh at all age ranges (Lisbellaw) but there's been some work in establishing a few youth hurling bases like in Belleek, Lisnaskea, Enniskillen & Belanaleck..Camogie's dead there though, there's not even an active county board.

Just on your first couple of sentences, I was wondering what comment the Munster Council made about Kilkenny & Galway having an easy time if it until the AI semi finals?

Can’t have it all ways, they didn’t want relegation so don’t crib about kk or Galway. Top eight and let them battle it out you still have the derbies in Munster and kk Galway and 1 other in the mix.

Munster does nothing and alot in Munster would prefer if the Munster championship was the all ireland

Dunno why I thought of this:

I think nearly all hurling people would like the game to be more popular. In most of the traditional counties there is a great love for the game and an awareness that it's narrow base is always a threat to it.

I don't know why it doesn't catch on in other places, it's popular enough as a spectator sport, but doesn't seem to make inroads. Maybe that's because of competition with Gaelic Football? I'd be from a very strong hurling area and 25 years ago there was very few playing rugby here, but once Munster got going it became normal. Somehow hurling never seems to expand even when its popular on TV.

I'm from Cork. Love the game, would love to see more counties competing. Anyone that wants to maintain a status quo is no friend of the game.

I'm playing a bit again with a Dublin club after years away from the game. The love for hurling is just as strong here as it is at home. It's also great to see the first and second generations of "new Irish" playing the game.

It wasn't very balanced though.

Munster had 5 strong teams and Kerry were always forgotten about. Now Kerry get minimum 5 championship games. Likewise Carlow would rarely make it through their first game while Galway and Antrim walk into the last 4

There's been a big improvement I think for small fish in big pond counties and the interest in these counties has improved as a result albeit from a low base

I definitely got the impression that the Munster teams were trying. It mightn't have had the quality of Dublin-Wexford or other Leinster games but I thought, for example, in the Limerick-Clare game they were taking it reasonably seriously.

from a clare point of view to start with , in 2009 or 10 we were playing 3rd tier league hurling and beat wexford in a relegation matcch to the christy ring at the time

people became concerned and started to make themselves available as coaches at under age , it turned out we unerthed some of the best coaches in the country , people like gerry o'connor donal moloney peter casey alan cunningham and paul kinnerick a limerick footballer that was teaching in shannon at the time , thats why clare won the all ireland in 2013 and why we didnt drop further down the line

but i dont see anything like this happening in either wexford or waterford at the moment and worryingly i see dublin starting to slide again , i think dublin needs investment in hurling , wheres better coaching is needed under age for the other two

as for the munster championship , it is always easy on the eye but i regard galway and kilkenny as the better all round teams , leinster was always a grafters championship while munster was always the more entertaining , leinster v munster teams from semi final stage on is normally 50/50 so dont believe the hype

thurles is a little run down especially the old stand , but it is the most perfect town to see a game , the atmosphere is excellent there are so many side roads to exit the town after you would be a fool to get stuck in traffic , and the people down there know how to look after supporters an excellent venue in fairness

Do traditional hurling counties honestly want hurling to grow or stay as is?

Completely irrelevant, question should be what are each County and the GAA doing to grow hurling in the county?

This "ah shure we've only 5 hurling clubs, aren't we great to be competitive" no, you're not, you're a disgrace, how can a county board stand over such few clubs playing hurling, pathetic.

Poor hurling counties need to stop looking to the likes of kilkenny and Tipp to sort out their problems and sort it out themselves.