Down hurling manager Ronan Sheehan has responded strongly to Brian McAvoy’s suggestion that a return of an Ulster Senior Hurling Championship “seems unrealistic.”
The Ulster GAA secretary noted in his annual end of year report that the “Ulster Hurling Development Committee members consulted with their counties and from the feedback it was clear that no county wanted the Ulster Hurling Championship to return as either a pre-season competition (a slot currently filled by the Conor McGurk Cup) or as an end of season competition.”
But Sheehan strongly denies that claim and insists his opinion was not sought. “Well, I certainly had no consultation on that,” said the Down boss.
“Who did they consult? Did they consult a number of delegates at Ulster Council, the vast majority of whom are football related people? Or did they come and ask the counties to have a conversation with the various management teams?
“You can claim to have consultation process but if you have a closed consultation with a number of Ulster Council delegates, the vast majority of whom are interested solely in football, then you’re going to get the answer you want from that.
“I would say, who from the Ulster hurling community did they consult? I certainly have had no conversations with anybody.”
Next season, Antrim will compete in the Leinster Championship off the back of their 2022 Joe McDonagh Cup success, but Sheehan believes that shouldn’t be used as an excuse not to run an Ulster Championship, which hasn’t been played since 2017.
“Why wouldn’t we have an Ulster Hurling Championship in our province? If you’re using Antrim’s progression in Leinster as an excuse, there’s no reason why the rest of the counties couldn’t play in an Ulster Championship if Antrim didn’t want to play in that.
“And I have no doubt that Antrim would want to play in an Ulster Championship as well. At the end of the day every single one of the counties in Ulster is participating at a variety of levels at senior hurling.
“There’s no reason why a graded competition couldn’t be used. If you think about it, most of the counties already play in the McGurk Cup and the McGurk Cup is effectively organised by Queens and the Ulster Council have piggybacked on the back of what Queens have done.
“That’s the reality. This is a competition that Queen’s organised and Queens got up and running and the Ulster Council have jumped on the back of it to effectively say they’re doing something for Ulster hurling.
“If I look at things and be as blunt as I can about it, Newry is one of the biggest towns in Ulster and the Ulster Council are doing absolutely nothing and have done absolutely nothing to support hurling in Newry.
“The Ulster Council are pocketing thousands of pounds from Croke Park every year for hurling development and are doing next to nothing with it.
“It’s just excuses. They can run an Ulster Football Championship, they can run a McKenna Cup, they can run any number of competitions. The reality is this, we would have had no underage hurling for our hurlers in the past number of years if it wasn’t for the good grace of the Leinster Council.
“I have no doubt the Ulster Council will put in some kind of token effort this year at U20s that will do nothing for us or for Antrim, who are genuinely interested in progressing U20 and will probably just deny one of us the opportunity to play in the Leinster Championship.
“For the last number of years, they’ve done next to nothing bar play a qualification competition, a one-off game to allow one of us to play in Leinster.”
