SOME intercounty coaches, managers and players woke up, quite literally, to the news this week that they mightn’t be included in the 2025 National Hurling Leagues if a CCCC proposal gets the green light.
The counties potentially affected are Fermanagh, Cavan, Longford, Leitrim and Louth. The document, you sense, was designed to be leaked in the first instance, probably to test the temperature surrounding the quite contentious move and to shine a light on the perceived lack of hurling development in those areas.
Essentially, the CCCC argues that there are better ways to develop the small-ball game in these counties than throwing sizeable amounts of money at their inter-county squads when there aren’t even five clubs in the county playing senior hurling.
So, it poses the question: Is the GAA getting value for its buck?
The ‘forwarded many times’ document states: “While there is positive work ongoing in terms of underage hurling development in these counties, there does not appear to be any significant progress being made in terms of the number of teams participating at adult club level where the investment in hurling seems to be restricted largely to the adult inter-county team, with very little corresponding spend on hurling coaching or games development generally.”
The document goes on to say that adult hurling teams have “fallen since their county teams began competing in both the Leagues and the summer championships in 2005.”
The CCCC estimates that €863,000 was spent on hurling by these five counties in 2023 which engaged 120 or 130 inter-county players – described as a “small coterie” of players.
There is a lot being laid at the door of these inter-county hurling teams - unfairly so, too.
The plan would be to redirect that money towards developing the game at grassroots level in the 'scorned five' which would be “cost neutral” to the Association.
The trade-off is the removal of these five counties from the NHL from 2025 onwards and offering them more games in an expanded Lory Meagher Cup, thus tightening the inter-county window to roughly three months.
The document is not without merit. After all, the Association – unlike governments - doesn’t have a money tree.
GAA units around the country need to find savings from somewhere as the cost-of-living crisis has a strong ripple effect.
The nagging issue here, though, is that this rationing of funds is being applied to hurling and not football.
This is another example of the big ball eating the small ball.
What we’re witnessing is a hurling tier falling off a cliff and into the sea.
Once that happens it’s almost impossible to retrieve it.
Throughout the years, we’ve flicked through countless shiny booklets about the next new hurling development programme to reinvigorate hurling in weaker counties - but the ambition and lofty visions contained in their glossy pages often didn’t transfer to the hurling field.
And while this leaked document is well-intentioned in parts, will these county boards be able to ringfence and redirect this money towards grassroots hurling and coaches on the ground and grow the game?
Or is this just a crude cost-cutting exercise with the underpinned belief that it is just too difficult, too costly, to grow the game in these non-traditional parts of the country?
An interested observer in one of the affected counties noted: “The county team is doing more for hurling in the county than any suit, development officer or cheque thrown at it does. This is coffin-nail stuff for hurling in these counties.”
It’s hard to escape the conclusion that this is a dolled-up surrender of hurling in these weaker counties.
And you wonder just how livid - or otherwise - are county officers in Cavan, Fermanagh, Longford, Leitrim and Louth feeling over this proposal which will inevitably damage their senior inter-county hurling teams?
And will the GPA have a nibble of this on behalf of its members - even though the hurling people in the five counties don't have strength in numbers?
It is also misplaced to view hurling in these counties through the prism of an eye-catching €863,000 spend.
Arguably the biggest issue affecting the game, even beyond the five affected lower counties, is the lack of calendar space afforded to the small ball.
Any root-and-branch analysis of the difficulties in trying to grow hurling would draw our attention to how often it gets squeezed into small pockets of the GAA calendar.
Therefore, the GAA at the highest level needs to drill down deeper into the issues affecting participation in hurling rather than painting a truncated picture that the Cavan senior hurling team or the Fermanagh senior hurling team are merely financial drains.
All inter-county spending has been off the charts for a long time.
Everyone gets the savings part of this discussion – and that they must be made somewhere - but there needs to be deeper and wider consultation in these counties to establish where Cavan hurling or Longford hurling is at and what coaches on the ground and those who are involved at county level feel about this proposal.
Or, indeed, what is the point in competing in the 2024 NHL if it’s the last League campaign they’ll feature in.
Will the existing squads in these counties slowly break up over the next 12 months?
Are an extra few games in the Lory Meagher really much of an incentive?
And how would this proposal, if passed, impact on the career pathway of the 15-year-old hurler in Leitrim?
It's only fair that the voices of the hurling evangelists in the weaker counties are heard at this juncture rather than a leaked financial audit report potentially governing the future direction of the game in places where they love the game just as much as they do in Kilkenny or Tipperary.
