Hurling's Provincial System

blue note

So what do people think of the provincial system in hurling? How much does it mean to win one and how fair is it?

I think in terms of importance to teams it greatly varies. To Waterford in 2002 or Dublin in 2013 they were massive moments for the counties. Even for Limerick in 2013, it had been nearly 20 years since they had won one. However, winning multiple provincial titles doesn't seem that important any more. It seems great as a step along the way to becoming proper all ireland contenders, but after a couple of them, I don't think it really matter all that much to people whether they win their province or not. What struck me at the time was a picture of Henry Shefflin that did the rounds after he retired - it listed his all stars, club and county all irelands and HOTY awards, but didn't mention his Leinster titles. I thought that said something.

And then there's the fairness of the provincial system. Since the back door proper came in in 2002, it's consistently the Munster teams getting to the later stages of the championship. Of the 26 back door semi-finalists, only 6 have been Leinster teams (counting Galway in 05 as Leinster). It's impossible to ignore the fact that Munster is the much more competitive province. It’s a highly unusual situation in sport that the majority of the strong teams would be in one side of the draw, but it’s very much the case in hurling.

So for me the desire to make it a fairer championship wins out.

Btw, I know it’s generally Munster that wants to keep the provincial system. But who’s fault it is that we still have it isn’t really my question. I’m wondering would people rather we abandoned it?

adrian522

Yep get rid of it if you want a fair championship. Or incorporate it into the league somehow if you want to keep the roll of honour going. Utterly ridiculous that there is 5 teams in Munster and God knows how many in Leinster yet every time a county comes up from the CR competition they are shoehorned into Leinster. Also, calling it Leinster is a bit redundant now surely? Teams from Connaght and Ulster complete and there is even talk of Kerry joining if/when they move up to the macCarthy cup competition.

The Lost Sheep

Don't get rid of Leinster/Munster championships but change its role within the race to win Liam. Not sure how or a fair way of doing that but dont get rid of Munster...

iDave

What's the alternative? A soulless 'Champions League' format that gets bandied around online forums with no guarantee the fan base will buy into it. Having the provinces as standalone competitions or 'incorporating into the league' (how would that even work?) would be the slow painful miserable death of them. Just look at the Ulster hurling championship, yes it still exists!
The question isn't should the provincial championships exist but a more wider comprehensive review or formats needs to take place across the board taking into account fairness, tradition, scheduling, clubs, burnout, marketing etc. Piecemeal adjustments which satisfy congress conservatives aren't good enough anymore.
The development of hurling outside of its traditional heartlands needs to be looked at better and county boards in Connacht, north Leinster and Ulster cant be allowed to just pay lip service anymore, or in Cavans case completely withdraw the senior team.

blue note

adrian522 wrote: »

Yep get rid of it if you want a fair championship. Or incorporate it into the league somehow if you want to keep the roll of honour going. Utterly ridiculous that there is 5 teams in Munster and God knows how many in Leinster yet every time a county comes up from the CR competition they are shoehorned into Leinster. Also, calling it Leinster is a bit redundant now surely? Teams from Connaght and Ulster complete and there is even talk of Kerry joining if/when they move up to the macCarthy cup competition.

It's not that ridiculous that there are 5 in Munster and loads in Leinster. Only two of those counties in Leinster aren't actually in the province and one was added to have a second strong team in the province and the other was added to the province where they would be able to compete. While it might be a bit odd that there are so many more in one province, you can see why that is. So if you're keeping the name, it's staying that way.

blue note

The Lost Sheep wrote: »

Don't get rid of Leinster/Munster championships but change its role within the race to win Liam. Not sure how or a fair way of doing that but dont get rid of Munster...

If you changed the reward of winning each championship it might actually help. So at present the winners of both go into the AI semi's and the runners up into the quarters. But if the achievement of winning Leinster or getting to the final is less, then so should the reward. So maybe put the winners into a quarter final instead of a semi?

iDave

blue note wrote: »

If you changed the reward of winning each championship it might actually help. So at present the winners of both go into the AI semi's and the runners up into the quarters. But if the achievement of winning Leinster or getting to the final is less, then so should the reward. So maybe put the winners into a quarter final instead of a semi?

How is Kilkenny getting a bye to semi, beating Dublin and Galway less of an achievement than Cork getting a bye to a semi and beating Waterford and Limerick?

adrian522

You need to re-balance things really. Realistically teams that have a shot at a provincial title, 5 are in Munster and 3 in Leinster (at most). If you want a fair championship you need to balance that out.

Any attempt to come up with a fairer or better championship structure is always sabotaged by the need to keep the provincial championships in place, though really they don't mean a whole lot to most teams anymore. (including the likes of Tipperary and Cork who are much more focused on All Irelands).

If Kerry were to come up to the top level would they go into Munster also? If so why should Antrim not join them? and maybe some of the other "weaker" teams. Essentially the "Leinster Qualifier Group" is nothing more than a lower tier in all but name.

These counties want to compete at the top level but realistically they cannot so they came up with this solution to try and suit everyone. The net result is you have Kilkenny going 12 weeks without a game in what should be the perfect time for hurling.

Also giving the Leinster champions a bye into the semi final is stupid when there are so many teams in the competition. To be honest I don't have a solution to all this but to me the current structure doesn't make any sense.

redlead

iDave wrote: »

How is Kilkenny getting a bye to semi, beating Dublin and Galway less of an achievement than Cork getting a bye to a semi and beating Waterford and Limerick?

Equally other years they might only have to beat Offaly to get into an All Ireland quarter final at a minimum. Arguing that Leinster is as strong as Munster is futile. You only need to look at who ends up in the Semi-finals each year. Since 2002 Waterford have been in more All Ireland Semis than Galway, Dublin and Wexford combined for example and Waterford aren't even a big three county.

Another reason I'd like the provincial system to be scrapped is that I'm fed up of playing the same teams every year. It's time to mix things up.

Fireball07

I can't think of a better way of running the Championship tbh.


And I think the provinces are even enough- at the moment there are 9 strong teams, with Laois or Offaly probably being next. 5 in Munster, 4 in Leinster. Leinster suffers from the fact that KK have been so strong recently... if they had been in Munster, I think they would have won a similar amount of provincial championships.

deadybai

Current structure is fine to me. Leinster has become competitive with the introduction of Galway. Wexford are up and coming and based on last year's championship they are a better team than Waterford. So that's four teams who are at a similar level with Dublin and Galway sandwiched between Kilkenny at the top and wexford at the bottom.

Although the munster championship is a higher level, Leinster isn't far behind. It's probably the best possible scenario at the moment.

The real problem is the poor development of the Leinster counties. Look at offaly for example. What a disaster. If they recovered back to the glory days Leinster would be on par with munster.

LeinsterDub

Dublin have won 9 of the last 10 Leinster football championships and 53 overall but there aren't calls to scrap it.

Leinster hurling could be won by 3/4 counties this year. Am looking forward to it

keeponhurling

Why reduce the number of trophies available ?

Warper

Definitely keep the provinces the way they are. With the addition of Galway and Antrim to Leinster it has become much fairer. The Munster championship has to be kept and any talk of scrapping it is ridiculous.

Mehapoy

Warper wrote: »

Definitely keep the provinces the way they are. With the addition of Galway and Antrim to Leinster it has become much fairer. The Munster championship has to be kept and any talk of scrapping it is ridiculous.

I'd actually like to see counties get a decent number of games in their provincial championship, if you had the 5 Munster teams all meeting each other from May to June, 2 home games, 2 away like the old 5 nations rugby, try to structure it so all teams have something to play for to the end, and maybe only make the winner and runner up go to AI semis, same with Leinster with 5 counties, and allow the christy ring winners a way in, you'd have a straight forward championship that makes sense to everyone and had a predictable fixture list and allows counties sell season tickets aswell...

randd1

Warper wrote: »

Definitely keep the provinces the way they are. With the addition of Galway and Antrim to Leinster it has become much fairer. The Munster championship has to be kept and any talk of scrapping it is ridiculous.

All the Munster Championship is 4 games between 5 counties.

Dont think hurling should be held back for the sake of 4 games, especially when only once since 2002 when the qualifiers came in proper have the Munster champions won the AI and that was a Cork side at the peak of their powers. Whether the Munster crowd like to admit it or not, Munster is not what it was, crowds are down and the feel of it just isnt the same as when it was knockout.

Leinster has teams from 3 provinces, and likely that Kerry will come up next year and enter Leinster, making it teams from all four provinces competing in the one province. Its only redeming feature at the moment is that the best side in the country plays there.

Basically what we have at the moment is four matches on one side between five counties, and an open competition for whats left on the other side of the draw, and a big two fingers to the club players.

The provincial system is outdated, it should be scrapped for a system fairer to every county, and to the clubs.

By all means keep the provincial system for the Club, U21 and Minor because theres no need to over complicate those levels.

But at adult level, its just not working these days, lads putting in 6 months of training for two games in three weeks in the summer, possibly three or four over 6 weeks, while the club players see only a few meaningful games a year, usually towards the end of the year.

Scrap them and replace them with something where teams get a good few meaningful games a year, and theres a few months set aside exclusively for the clubs.

Fireball07

I think a group system would be a lot less popular with supporters than the provincial championships. I mean people would watch it, but it's basically just the league again.

Some teams only get 2 games a year, that's true, but the cut-throat nature of the competition is what makes it good.

The Lost Sheep

randd1 wrote: »

All the Munster Championship is 4 games between 5 counties.

Dont think hurling should be held back for the sake of 4 games, especially when only once since 2002 when the qualifiers came in proper have the Munster champions won the AI and that was a Cork side at the peak of their powers. Whether the Munster crowd like to admit it or not, Munster is not what it was, crowds are down and the feel of it just isnt the same as when it was knockout.

Leinster has teams from 3 provinces, and likely that Kerry will come up next year and enter Leinster, making it teams from all four provinces competing in the one province. Its only redeming feature at the moment is that the best side in the country plays there.

Basically what we have at the moment is four matches on one side between five counties, and an open competition for whats left on the other side of the draw, and a big two fingers to the club players.

The provincial system is outdated, it should be scrapped for a system fairer to every county, and to the clubs.

By all means keep the provincial system for the Club, U21 and Minor because theres no need to over complicate those levels.

But at adult level, its just not working these days, lads putting in 6 months of training for two games in three weeks in the summer, possibly three or four over 6 weeks, while the club players see only a few meaningful games a year, usually towards the end of the year.

Scrap them and replace them with something where teams get a good few meaningful games a year, and theres a few months set aside exclusively for the clubs.

Why scrap competitions when there is so few competitions to be won as it is?
In how many counties are club players held off from playing through the summer at least a game every so often.
The Provincial championships should be kept. Munster has been fairly even over past 20 years or so. Each county winning title at least 3 times in that time. Leinster is different but it always has been(virtually anyway)
Keeping the Munster championship wouldn't be holding back hurling, Removing it or totally adapting it would worsen the sport.
The provincial systems role within the race to be all Ireland champion needs to be looked at but the provincial system and the provincial championships are not outdated.
What is this most fair system that would replace what we have at the moment?
Its not the fault of the current inter county system that club players don't get plenty of games through the summer in their championships. there is plenty of time in the summer months for both inter county and club championship games(and plenty of these) to be played