We’re in the height of Championship season, and it’s fair to say that, all in all, both our hurling and football editions have lived up to expectations.
We’ve enjoyed some classic football games, such as Kildare V Armagh, Monaghan V Down – but it will all boil down to the semis, and we knew that since the start of the year.
Galway and Tipperary played out a typically tit-for-tat encounter on Sunday, and it was the most exciting hurling game of the year, though we’ve had a few.
The age-old debate lives on between snobs of both codes, arguing that their game is better.
One thing we can all agree on is that we’re both better than soccer. Thanks to Dragons Den business man Gavin Duffy for pointing that out.
What a game #GalvTipp & what a score from #JoeCanning. Amazing what the Arsenal/Chelsea players get paid today & the hurlers play for free! https://t.co/phFmg6eEXd
— Gavin Duffy (@GavinDuffy) August 6, 2017
Many other famous faces, even those from a football background such as Killarney, in former president of the GAA, Sean Kelly were bowled over by last week’s action.
Today's #GalvTipp game shows why more & more people from football background, like me, prefer to go to hurling games now ! @offtheball
— Seán Kelly MEP (@SeanKellyMEP) August 6, 2017
For this writer, there is no debate, hurling is the better game and here’s how those of similar ilk can prove that to their football counterparts.
1.Hurling is more exciting – to watch and to play. A score can be manufactured from any location on the field, in the minimal of time. A goalkeeper could pick out an attacker with a zinging puck-out and he could tap it over about two seconds after the puck-out.
Hurling is awesome to watch 🙂 … and that is a view from Scotland
— Angus B MacNeil MP🇺🇦 (@AngusMacNeilSNP) August 6, 2017
A game can change in an instant which means spectators are always on the edge of their seats, and players are leaping out of their skin. It also means that a game really isn’t over until it’s over, because goals can be scored out of nothing, momentum switches in an instant and hefty leads can be reigned in in an instant. Football is a lot slower moving.
Just look at some of these scores.
Galway 0-22 Tipperary 1-18 at full-time. Joe Canning with the last minute winner! pic.twitter.com/S5rUBzem15
— eir Sport (@eirSport) August 6, 2017
2. More based on skill – The basic requirement of a hurler is to be skillful, and there are so many skills to be mastered. A footballer could get away with a lacking of skill by compensating for it with fitness and speed. A hurler lacking in skill will be found out quicker than a footballer. Let’s put it this way, the majority of skilled hurlers, will also be skillful at football, but that’s not the case for as many footballers in hurling.
3. Last weekend – When was the last time we seen a football game that ebbed and flowed quite like Galway and Tipperary?
4. Less demanding to practice – Hurlers can practice every single hour of the day, and they wouldn’t get tired. They can puck off a wall, with a pal, and they can do it all without breaking a sweat. A footballer practising takes a lot more energy and effort, and kicking the ball off a wall or with a pal doesn’t have the same magic.
5. You can always have a puck – Even when you’re 50, 60 or even 70, you’ll still be able to pick up the hurl and go at it again. By that age a man will be stiff, they might be shook and their hamstrings certainly won’t allow them kick a football. You never lose the hurling.
6. Less cynical play – There’s no black card farce in hurling, there’s no outrageously obvious cynical play, like we sometimes see so often in football.
7. Less emphasis on physicality – Footballers are trained to be physical specimens , a hurler with all the skills and speed will trump a physical lad with a lack of skill, the cream rises.
8. Less tactics – Tactics, tactics, tactics. That’s the way football has gone nowadays, whether it’s followers like it or not. There’s defensive tactics, there’s players flooding back and so on. We saw Tipperary and Galway on Sunday and it was fifteen on fifteen, it was the beautiful man-on-man battle which is what we want to see in the GAA.
9. The foreigners can see it – Every time there’s a hurling game broadcast on Sky Sports, Twitter is taken over by foreigners who had never seen our great game before and think it’s the best thing they’ve seen since sliced bread – well, some of them.
https://twitter.com/mattfharris/status/614264531569766400?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sportsjoe.ie%2Fgaa%2Fthe-canadian-twitter-reaction-to-hurling-went-exactly-how-you-might-imagine-30065
I've just discovered Hurling on @Sportsnet I might stop covering hockey to cover this thing.
— Matt and DJ (@IceDogsThisWeek) June 26, 2015
10. Inventiveness – In nearly every game of hurling we are provided with so many glimpses of flamboyant originality that just amazes us. Moments like Austin Gleeson’s earlier in the year, Mark Coleman’s sidelines, or Walter Walsh’s against Limerick, but in reality, whenever Noel or John McGrath and so many other hurlers touch the ball, we are amazed.
Agree now?
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