Hurling's misshapen season is back on the agenda in 2015, thanks to Richie Hogan's very un-Kilkenny-like bluntness on Off the Ball a while back.
The debate used to be incessant, centring largely around the Galway hurlers, who began their season months after everyone else, played their first game deep in the qualifiers and were essentially asked to just pretend they'd lost a match and begin their programme as if that were so.
When Galway moved into Leinster, the GAA thought they'd killed the debate stone dead. It dealt with the arseways hurling season and did so without the disturbing the blessed and most sacred Munster hurling championship. However, Hogan's oddly forthright on the championship season has gotten people thinking.
The scheduling of club games is annoying people too. Former Clare underage player Keith Wood returned to the sport recently to help out with the strength and conditioning at local club Smith O'Briens in Killaloe. He spoke about his time there on being inducted into the UL Hall of Fame this week. The Clare Champion reported his comments.
It was supposed to be an eight or nine day assignment but Woody caught the hurling bug and stayed the entire year. However, there were annoyances. The steady rat-a-tat of games that rugby provides over a long season doesn't exist in hurling.
I enjoyed it but got frustrated with the erratic nature of the season. That just doesn’t happen in rugby. To be honest the last 30 years of my life have been rugby orientated. I couldn’t get my head around the fact that you could have a championship match and then you might have to wait three months for the next one. That just doesn’t make any sense to me.
And he experienced the familiar headaches of club coaching... Emigration as an occupational hazard.
I found it hard. I thought Smith O’Brien’s were really fit, in really good shape and had discipline but then you had no match for eight weeks. By the time the matches came around, three or four players had emigrated. That’s very tough. I’m not standing from the outside criticising another sport but I found that to be a frustration for me. But I do love it and want to see Clare win all the time.
