Ballyboden St Enda’s won the Dublin county championship this year.
And if they want to get to an All-Ireland semi-final after it, they’ll have won three more hard games in Leinster to get there. It’s the same for Ballygunner in Waterford and Munster and it’s the same for Ballyhale in Kilkenny and Leinster too.
That’s the way it is for them and that’s the way it should be.
The road to the promised land is always a rough, uncompromising and gritty one.
Galway is a tough county championship to win too.
There are so many good hurling clubs in the county like St Thomas’, Portumna, Loughrea and the rivalries between those clubs are fierce but Ballyboden St Enda’s had to beat the current best club team in Ireland, Cuala, to win the Dublin championship and that was before they could even dream about taking on – never mind beating – the most successful club team of all time, Ballyhale Shamrocks in the Leinster final.
Then and only then if those dreams were to come true, they would be one of the last four teams standing in the All-Ireland club hurling championship.
They would be exactly where Galway are already.
Every county championship is tough to win. Winning the Tipperary county championship is like winning the royal rumble, for God’s sake there were 32 teams setting out with the goal of lifting Dan Breen in the Premier County only a few years ago.
There are only 12 teams in the Kilkenny senior hurling championship but that’s the most competitive of all the county championship and being one of those 12 teams in any given year is an achievement in itself. That’s why two of the county’s top three most successful ever clubs – Tullaroan and Mooncoin – are down intermediate and haven’t been senior in a while.
Meanwhile in Galway the county title winners are getting parachuted to the All-Ireland semi-final basically just because of their place on the map.
Roll of honour
Galway clubs have won more All-Ireland titles than any other county with 13 and they’ve contested six more finals than any other county on 21.
Obviously the great Galway teams like Portumna and Athenry would still have won All-Irelands even if they had to come through provincial runs because they were that good, but would Portumna have won all four? Would they have won three All-Irelands in the space of four years and would Athenry have won three in five with three more hard-hitting games every single one of those years?
St Thomas’ won the Galway club championship last weekend and now they’re straight through to a semi-final against Antrim champions Cushendall. They’re second favourites to win the Tommy Moore Cup in March for their second time and their freshness and their hunger when it comes down to the business stages, especially of their county players like Conor Cooney and David Burke, in comparison to lads like Pauric Mahony and TJ Reid is surely an advantage to them.
This isn’t Galway club’s fault but that’s not the point. The county team take part in the Leinster hurling championship, the faults of the same sort of system having been recognised there and as Colm Parkinson argued on Monday’s GAA Hour Show, the club set-up should be re-jigged too.
“I think this is grossly unfair. Loads of Galway clubs have won the All-Ireland club and it’s because they just have a free pass to it. If the Galway county team is in Leinster, why aren’t the county champions?”
“Why do you win a Galway county final and suddenly land in an All-Ireland semi-final, it’s madness,” he said.
Time it was sorted out.
You can listen to the Cassidy and Carroll interview and much more from The GAA Hour Show here.
