Disappointing stuff.
Kerry have begun the 2018 National Hurling League campaign well with two wins from three and are off the back of a Leinster Championship appearance and a Christy Ring Cup win before that.
Following their recent success, there was confidence growing in the Kingdom’s hurlers, but their manager, Fintan O’Connor, fears that the new All-Ireland Hurling Championship format will affect their chances of improvement.
The Joe McDonagh Cup will take place for the first time in 2018.
This competition will see its six teams face each other once in a league format, with the top two teams advancing to compete in the cup final.
These two teams will then enter the All-Ireland competition at the preliminary quarter-final stages. Here, they will face off against the third placed teams of the Munster and Leinster championships respectively.
The Kerry problem is the inequality that exists for them if they win the Joe McDonagh Cup, compared to the fate of a Leinster winner.
If the Joe McDonagh Cup champions are Leinster team, they are automatically promoted to the Leinster Championship for the following year. If the winner of the Joe McDonagh Cup is a Munster team, they must win a play-off with the bottom-placed team in the Munster Championship to gain promotion to the following year’s Munster Championship.
Given that the Kingdom have only amassed 10 wins in their history in the Munster Championship, their shock victory over Waterford in 1993 the only win since the 1920s, the chance of their progression in the All-Ireland series, under these rules, is therefore very slim.
Speaking on the latest GAA Hour Show, O’Connor lamented the tough task ahead of his side and argued that it would make more sense if they went straight into the Leinster championship, like the other teams do, and like they have been doing for years.
“Kerry have to play the last placed team in Munster. With no disrespect to anyone in Kerry, it will be a very hard match no matter how well we’re going”, he complained
“Playing any of the top five teams in Munster would be a massive test for us, whereas if Laois or Antrim or anyone wins the Joe McDonagh, apart from us, they go straight into Leinster.”
“That’s tough for our lads to take.”
After winning the Christy Ring Cup in 2015, Kerry qualified to play in the Leinster Championship. The decision for Kerry to play in Leinster was made in rue of the gulf in standard between Kerry and all other teams in Munster.
It was deemed that in Leinster, Kerry would play against teams of their own standard in the early rounds as opposed to being well beaten in Munster. O’Connor expressed his confusion as to why this thought process was revoked and they find themselves back in the hostile Munster Championship.
“I think we were operating in the last number of years and if we were coming out of the round robin we were going into the Leinster Championship and I don’t see why that should have to be changed”, he argued.
“I think if we had have won Joe McDonagh maybe we should have been given the chance to go into Leinster like Laois and Antrim and all the rest of them.”
Perhaps the most worrying part of the problem for O’Connor is that smaller counties like Kerry were not even informed of the proposed changes until it was far too late to state their case.
“We didn’t really get an opportunity to voice our concerns”, he said.
“The Munster stipulation of it, we didn’t know until it was nearly published. There wasn’t really any consultation other than that there was going to be the Joe McDonagh cup and there was going to be five or six teams competing in it.”
“There wasn’t really a mention that Kerry were going to be treated differently until it was published, and I suppose it was too late then to change it.”
O’Connor and his team will continue and do their best to ensure Joe McDonagh cup victory.
“We won’t get anywhere by crying over it”, O’Connor said.
“We just have to get on and try our best. There’s no guarantees in the Joe McDonagh Cup. Antrim, Laois, Westmeath everyone will be trying to win it.”
“We will try our best to get that match against the bottom team in Munster. We might not win it, but we’ll try our best anyway.”
Listen to the full interview and much more from The GAA Hour Hurling Show right here.
This article was written by Mícheál Ó Scannáil.
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