Condensed season gives little time to savour championship
In terms of hurling, this has to be one of the great weekends of the year with three blockbuster games, including two provincial finals, down for decision.
Once again, the TUS Gaelic Grounds in Limerick will be jammed to capacity as over 44,000 people fill every seat and stand on the terraces behind the Ennis Road goals or the City End as we look across at Thomond Park and the Clare hills in the distance. And all of this on a Saturday evening.
On Sunday, Croke Park will have an expected attendance of over 30,000 for the Leinster Hurling Final between Kilkenny and Galway, which will be preceded by the much anticipated clash between Kildare and Laois in the Joe Mc Donagh Cup Final.
All three games will be televised live by RTÉ and there will be commentary on RTÉ Radio 1.
The 'Split Season' has its supporters and its detractors, but when we have three crucial games being played between a Saturday evening and a Sunday afternoon on one weekend, it really highlights the impact the condensed calendar is having.
Nobody involved - from players, managers, officials, fans, or those of us who work in the media - have the time or the space to actually savour and enjoy the championships any more.
There is little or no time to analyse in some depth the learnings from games last weekend or preview matches coming down the tracks.
In the past, the summer really belonged to the GAA, but with the 'Split Season' in operation, this has dramatically changed.
The GAA is in direct competition in terms of media coverage with other sports who fully deserve their coverage by RTÉ and other media outlets.
Last Tuesday, I filmed in Croke Park interviews with Galway's Cathal Mannion, Kilkenny's Adrian Mullen, David Dooley from Laois and Paddy McKenna, the Kildare goalkeeper, and my report previewing the Leinster Hurling Final and Joe Mc Donagh Cup Final was broadcast on Tuesday evening on the Six One News.
This evening, I will be broadcasting live from Bruree in Co Limerick - very close to the Cork border - where I will be interviewing two former stars, TJ Ryan and Pat Mulcahy, as we look ahead to tomorrow's Munster Hurling Final, which has traditionally been one of the biggest games of the year.
We only have limited space and time in the bulletin. The sports news will also have my colleague Tony O'Donoghue reporting live from the Aviva Stadium on the Republic of Ireland v Senegal soccer friendly, Leinster v Glasgow in the United Rugby Championship, the Women's Nations League Draw which involves our Republic of Ireland team in a promotion/relegation play off, The French Open tennis championship, the Tenerife and Canadian Golf Open, the Epsom Oaks in racing and me and the lads in Bruree talking about tomorrow's Munster Hurling Final. Do you get my point?
It's a crowded market and the GAA is a huge part of that market but it's still very busy.
In the past the Munster and Leinster Hurling Finals would be played in July with little or no competition in terms of sport to the GAA world.
But it's different now. That's just one negative but a very big negative.
And it's not just us in RTE that find the situation challenging but other media outlets have the same experiences.
The back pages are no longer always dominated by GAA headlines. As I said there's so much going on.
Next year there will be a bit more space given between the finals of the Allianz National Leagues and the start of the championships, but it will only be a small window of opportunity.
As it stands the All-Ireland Hurling Final next year is on the same day as the World Cup Final which will be played at the MetLife Stadium at the Meadowlands Sports Complex in East Rutherford, New Jersey, near New York. Do you get my point?
To be fair and balanced the 'Split Season' has the positive effect of giving club players across the country a clear plan in terms of fixtures, but ultimately most county finals are still not played until the middle or late October so perhaps more space can be given to the hurling championship so that it can be played during the summer months of June and July and extended to at least August and breathe a little.
Getting back to this weekend, the timing of the Munster Hurling Final on a Saturday evening at 6pm is not a "normal" time for a GAA match of this gravitas or magnitude.
Saturday afternoons in any of our cities means a shopping day for most people so combining that factor with a huge crowd heading to the match means that we all will be travelling very early to the Gaelic Grounds in Limerick and probably log jammed for hours afterwards despite the huge effort of gardaí who always do a great job in moving the traffic as quickly as they can.
The hurling people of Ireland are loyal to the game and many would also travel to Croke Park on Sunday if they could to watch Kilkenny v Galway in the Leinster Final, but the reality is that many of them will be turned off by the logistical difficulties they would have to overcome to get there.
There is also a strong argument that this match hould be played at a provincial venue like Portlaoise or Tullamore where 30,000 fans attending would bring an electric atmosphere to the occasion.
The same number of people in Croke Park will mean a more than half empty stadium which won't add in any way to the atmosphere around the ground, or have that visual impact that a full venue would have for the people in attendance or the hundreds of thousands watching on television.
Leinster Council has shown great vision this year with some of its calls so perhaps the decision to move the Leinster Hurling Final out of Croke Park in 2026 might be considered in its review later this year.
The weekend pictures on the TV and the difference between the scenes in the Gaelic Grounds in Limerick tomorrow evening and Croke Park on Sunday might just persuade everyone that it's the right thing to do.
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Irish Times
an hour ago
- Irish Times
Relentless Down give Galway huge test but experience sees Pádraic Joyce's contenders through
All-Ireland SFC preliminary quarter-final: Down 3-21 Galway 2-26 Another Sunday, another stone-cold thriller. Down gave Galway their bellyful it here, chasing Padraic Joyce's side manfully and relentlessly right to the very last drop. They came up short, mostly because they'll be playing Division 3 football next year while Galway are a top table side and have been for a while. On the evidence of this summer, it won't be too long before Down grab themselves a seat too. Conor Laverty's team are a world removed from where they were when he took over in late 2002. Back then, they hadn't won a game for a year and the traffic at the dressingroom door was flowing out rather than in. A world where they would run a credible All-Ireland contender like Galway to two points must have seemed beyond fanciful back then. 'I wasn't coming here hoping that Down would play well,' Laverty said afterwards. 'I came here with a massive belief that these players could perform at this level and that this is the standard we want to be playing at. But what we did talk to the players about was, do you want to be coming here to Páirc Esler to be playing a preliminary quarter-final in front of 14,000 people? 'Or would you rather be playing ... I came to a league match here against Clare one year and there wasn't 150 people at it. Or Tailteann Cup games where there were only a couple of hundred people there. This is where players want to be. We would have felt that in games this year, it's been experience that has held us back slightly in key moments.' READ MORE Down's Pierce Laverty in action against Galway's John Maher. Photograph: James Lawlor/Inpho Ultimately, that was probably Galway's thumb on the scale here. When the stadium was bubbling midway through the second half as Down dominated midfield, Joyce was able to bring Peter Cooke in off the bench. Cooke has been a here-again-gone-again presence for Galway down the years but he made his debut in 2016 so he knows the road. He was able to steer Galway home. Cooke caught a world of ball, scored a point and laid on the sealing goal for Tomo Culhane. All of which meant that brave and all as Down had been, the home side were never able to cut the margin below two points. 'We were battle-hardened before today but we're battle-hardened again,' was Joyce's take on it all. And so they were. Though Cooke saw them through the endgame, Galway were in position thanks in the main to a couple of effervescent displays from Matthew Thompson and Shane Walsh. Thompson in particular looks like a nailed-on Young Footballer of the Year, pulling the strings out the pitch year like someone with a decade under his belt rather than just a few months. Walsh popped up with 1-7 in the first half, including three two-pointers and a goal that oozed class. In the space of two minutes just before half-time, he landed a two-pointer from play, laid on a goal for Rob Finnerty, skinned Ceilum Doherty for a one-pointer, then caught the kickout and drove on to draw a foul outside the arc, which he duly converted. Seán Fitzgerald in action for Galway. Photograph: James Lawlor/Inpho He got injured in the process, landing on his shoulder, and barely had a kick after half-time before being taken off. 'He got a nasty injury,' Joyce said. 'He fell forward and the Down player followed through with the knee on the shoulder so he's in a bit of a bother there with the shoulder.' That burst just before half-time looked like it had put the game out of reach for Down. They went from being just a point behind in the 28th minute to going in at the break on the thick end of a 1-16 to 1-6 scoreline. Even though there was a stiff breeze blowing straight down the ground, it still looked fairly insurmountable for Laverty's side. But Down didn't take a backward step. They had a couple of two-pointers on the board within 69 seconds of the restart. Odhran Murdock was phenomenal, the 22-year-old Down captain running in 1-2 from midfield and pushing his side forward at every opportunity. Caolan Mooney rolled back the years off the bench, whistling through for back-to-back points to make it 1-20 to 1-18 with a quarter-hour to go. Galway were rocking now, their kickout in such peril that Joyce had replacement goalkeeper Connor Gleeson warming up a couple of times. But gradually they got a foothold around the middle again, with Cooke and Cian Darcy settling them. When Cooke put Culhane away in the 65th minute, the Galway sub iced the game. It was tough on Down goalkeeper Ronan Burns who had made a string of brilliant saves but wasn't quite up to this one. Down's day in microcosm. They gave Galway a huge test here. Expect it to stand to both of them. 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Irish Examiner
an hour ago
- Irish Examiner
'It looks a nasty injury': Shane Walsh a doubt for Galway's quarter-final
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Irish Examiner
2 hours ago
- Irish Examiner
Laverty bemoans Walsh goal amid McCarthy injury
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