IN ALL FAIRNESS - Championship lift-off after false start

As a nationality, Irish people tend to let you know what they think, particularly in a negative sense. We are never slow to have a moan and the advent of social media over the last fifteen years has made it a lot easier to make their feelings known on an issue.

I have always felt that in the GAA, the majority of supporters are never more happier than when they have something to moan about, even more than seeing their team winning something.

You can also time the moans each year, starting out with the requirement for the pre-season competitions and it’s impact on college competitions, to the competitiveness of the national leagues. At the moment, we are going through the moan over the future of the provincial football championships and the predictability of it all before the round-robin format kicks into gear next month. From then, there will be the criticism of the regularity of matches and that there are too many games, then finally that it all wraps up too quickly with All-Ireland Finals in July.

Thankfully, the big games are coming into focus and there is nothing bigger at the moment than the Munster Senior Hurling Championship. When the round-robin format was first introduced in 2018, no one could have predicted how successful it has proven to be. It has helped that you currently have five teams of a pretty similar level, even if Limerick are going for a six-in-a-row this year.

The general feeling is that if Limerick are to be stopped from completing a record five-in-a-row of All-Ireland titles, they need to be eliminated in Munster, or barring that, sending them through the backdoor route to Croke Park via a preliminary and/or quarter final where playing extra games always carries added risk.

Munster GAA operate their senior hurling fixtures on an annual rotational basis, and they couldn’t have asked for a better start this year with Clare and Limerick squaring off in front of a packed-out Cusack Park in Ennis. The only thing they would have preferred would have been for this fixture to have been a home game for Limerick as there would have been sell-out at the 43,000 capacity TUS Gaelic Grounds.

Instead, just over 20,000 will pack into Michael Cusack’s field for what should be a raucous occasion as both teams look to set down a marker for the year. For Clare, it will be in terms of continuing their momentum from the league and proving they are the nearest challengers to Limerick, while for the reigning champions Limerick, it will be about reminding everyone, as well as themselves, how good they are as they go for immortality.

For all challengers, a Clare win on Sunday might appear to be the ideal outcome to put increased pressure on the Shannonsiders, but from a Tipperary point of view, I would think a Limerick win would be best as wouldn’t they be a tougher task on Sunday week coming off the back of a loss, and really primed to have to get a win.

As exciting as the Munster Championship is, it is also an inherently unfair competition as with five teams, the timing of a teams bye round and the scheduling of games can be key as to a teams chances of progressing to the All-Ireland Series. For example, regardless of the result next Sunday, Waterford will have two weeks to come down from the high or recover from the low of a defeat before they take on Tipperary in their second game. For Tipperary, priming themselves to play Limerick, they then only have six days to recover and prepare to travel to Waterford.

Ideally, there would be six teams, like in Leinster, where no team is advantaged or disadvantaged by when they play their games/ Arguably the most important game this weekend isn’t in Munster but is the Leinster Championship clash of Wexford and Dublin in Wexford Park on Saturday evening where the winner would be strongly favoured to progress to the All-Ireland Series, along with Galway and Kilkenny, provided there are no other upset results.

Oh, that reminds me of another moan that will make its return after weekend, and it is the games that won’t make the cut for live tv coverage. Derry v Donegal gets the Saturday evening slot on RTE while the Sunday Game will show Clare v Limerick, followed by Roscommon v Mayo in football, all big games in their own right.

GAAGO steps in then and will show Kerry v Cork (has there ever been a less hyped clash between the great rivals) on Saturday afternoon, followed by Waterford v Cork in hurling on Sunday. Wexford v Dublin didn’t even make the cut, and God forbid Carlow or Antrim do something crazy and upset Galway or Kilkenny, then there will be an explosion altogether.

All supporters will feel their own counties game is important enough to be shown live so no matter what the GAA, RTE or GAAGO do, they’ll never win.