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

imo and this will more than likely been a controversial view but i think the McCarty Cup would have been better off had Westmeath stayed up. I know they had to win today and didn't, but i just don't see what Antrim actually offer the McCarty Cup. When was the last notable result they've had? Beating Dublin in 2010? Yet they never built on that. Westmeath looked to be going the right way. Stayed up in Div 1 beat Wexford having drew last year.

i would be , dublin get an awful reputation but they are better then the current waterford team and so are wexford , the fact is the attendances of the munster games add to the atmosphere and rte and the general media lap it up ,

if you follow hurling the space given up by cork and limerick was unforgivable ,it wa the total opposite between dublin and galway which tells its own story

The traditional hurling counties want to keep the sport to themselves, they pay lip service and pretend they want to expand the game but secretly they think the non elite are beneath them.

Look at the whining by the main sports columnist in today's Irish Independent about poor old Cork being out of the championship and how unfair it is (despite them losing 2 of their 4 matches) .

Don't think that's the case really.

If hurling was so intrinsically impossibly, skillful as some fellas like to pretend it is then close to the 100% of the people that have been able to master it wouldn't all live in the southern half of Ireland.The fact that such a relatively high percentage of the people who have tried the game have been able to excel at it (compared to other sports) shows you it isn't really that difficult a sport at all.

People don't tend to play it because there is no tradition in their club or county, that is the reason.

He did but it's just a carrot for these teams for each season to give them a shot at the big boys , he could have said they shouldn't be in it without referencing how it was unfair Cork are no longer in the championship.

Yeah, one point in one game and it would have been a different table, That to me is fine margins. And I don't see that as a bad thing, it makes the competition more interesting.

How boring is the Premier League with the same teams running away with it every year or a Leinster Rugby home game against an Italian team.

The top brass do not want a 'newbie' coming in and taking over the show

Hypothetically, if a New York/London started offering lads massive money to come over and work there. If they ended up walking the Championships there'd be uproar

Likewise, if someone like a Wicklow pumped massive money into their academy for the next few years, if it all came to fruition, there'd be jealousy, spite and multitudes of excuses

As long as there was no smell of professionalism nobody would care too much. As it stands there is nothing stopping either from happening in the current system

London or Wicklow could in theory win Christy Ring, Joe McDonnagh and then the All-Ireland

I wouldn't consider myself a "genuine hurling person" but the competition is called the "all Ireland" and I do believe it lives up to that name as much as it can

Would be a quick fix if the GAA was arsed to get as many clubs as possible to field under age hurling teams to under 12 at least. Especially any decent sized clubs. Fine the clubs that don't bother their hole fielding a team.

That wouldn't be spreading the game though would it? It would be just buying a team which everybody would be against, if Wicklow started off underage and had a competitive senior team in time then all counties, whether traditional or not, would be applauding, same for Carlow, Westmeath, Kildare, Offaly who have improved underage and are more competitive at senior as a result, I don't see any of the traditional counties having jealousy, spite or excuses, that's all in your head I think.

Cork have that attitude in general its not just an Offaly thing.

Good enough for me. If they want to keep it, leave them have it. Given how the championship pans out now, it doesn't make a difference to the scheduling.

You're not allowed to say that!

Isn't every hurling game on TV a classic and beyond criticism?

If I remember correctly Kerry were open to playing this years Munster final in Ennis but the Munster Council decided on limerick.

Probably would have gotten a bigger crowd in Ennis and definitely a better atmosphere.

Sometimes/most of the time, I cannot understand the thinking of the suits.

It's mad how hurling is regarded as almost this ancient art-form (ceremonial hurl wielded out for presidential visits) yet the game itself has gone so far removed from the romance that it's closer to the dreaded football. Never see any exciting ground hurling anymore because retention is king (John Fenton and Adrian Fenlon would be lost in today's version), and most attacking moves feature multiple hand-passing in the build-up. Seperately, long-range scores have become too frequent.

This stand by the Liam McCarthy counties is box ticking though, as it won't affect them in the slightest.

For me this debate is a bit redundant; because I really dont think it matters that much if traditional hurling counties want hurling to grow.

The hurling championship works for them. Clare, Tipp, Limerick, KK - they have a series of great matches every year, their fans are energised, making county team is a big deal, underage is humming along.

The fact is that championship is probably much better for the top hurling player than it is for the top footballer. How many close games do Dublin or Kerry play each year? 2 at best.

The only thing that matters is what people think in the peripheral counties - do the non-traditional hurling counties want hurling to grow, and, what are they going to do about it. Cause no one else will do it for them, nor should they be expected to.

I think the decision had much less to do with telling players from weaker counties to fu€k off and much more to do with money.

And that's the crux of this for me; decisions in the GAA are being governed by money, not the good of the games. The move to a semi-professional sport, and that's what the highest level of both codes effectively is now, was always going to see a cost-cutting exercise implemented somewhere, regardless of interest or game development,

And don't think something like this couldn't happen in football either. I can see why so many football counties are so dead against the removal of the provincial championships because they know without the provincials, they'd be tossed into lower league competitions similar to hurling, which might be more competitive and entertaining, but would see their concerns and influence dismissed by the money men. The only thing that has seen football escape the same potential gutting for money is safety in numbers.

It's just another example of how the GAA, and in particular the GPA, have prioritized money as they hold a Pro 14/Premier League image of themselves as ultimate sportsmen.

If the GAA really wanted to develop hurling, it would put a spending limit of €300k on county senior teams, allow expenses for only two training sessions a week, and use savings to develop participation in schools and develop county/provincial leagues during the first part of the year in developing counties. The fact that every county fields a hurling team and has clubs, and more importantly plenty of fans of hurling (even if they're never played it), shows at least there's an interest there. And if any county breaks the funding rules, kick them out of the championship for two years and drop them to the bottom rung of the ladder.