After a disappointing weekend in the All Ireland Hurling Championship, GAA President Jarlath Burns has suggested that it might take decades for the game to reach a higher standard outside of the top counties.
Even between the two provincial competitions, there’s a clear difference in quality between the Munster and Leinster championships.
The weekend’s two All-Ireland quarter-finals were over long before the end as Clare outclassed Leinster finalists Dublin on Saturday, before Cork showed no mercy against Offaly on Sunday.
And while Galway will fancy their chances of going all the way, traditional Leinster counties couldn’t take advantage in the east in one of those exceptionally rare years where Kilkenny aren’t at the level.
It was the first time since 1996 that the Cats hadn’t made it to the All-Ireland competition and the Bob O’Keeffe Cup will be spending the winter out west.
Offaly last made the All-Ireland final in 2000, Wexford in 1996, while you have to go back to 1961 for Dublin’s most recent appearance in hurling’s biggest game.
The Tribesmen lifted the Liam MacCarthy in 2017, but it’s two years further for the last time a traditional county from the east lifted the trophy when Brian Cody delivered his final All-Ireland for Kilkenny.
Dublin’s season petered out after a good Leinster round-robin campaign
There’s also a gap between the Joe McDonagh teams and even mid-table teams in Leinster, with last year’s champions Kildare being immediately relegated back into the competition for next year.
Bringing it all together, it gives a sense of the gap between the top counties and everyone else growing more and more with each year.
Burns, who will finish his term as the association’s president early next year, acknowledged that there are issues in the game.
But he also pointed out that there are green shoots when it comes to the game.
“Hurling has never been stronger in Ireland,” he said on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland.
“There are more people playing hurling at a higher level than ever before. You’re seeing the likes of Kildare making breakthrough. Carlow and Laois, these counties are in the chasing pack.
“The biggest challenge is the difference between winning the Joe McDonagh and making the breakthrough into Liam MacCarthy, because the standard at Liam MacCarthy, particularly in the Munster Championship, is so high.
“It is really, really difficult for a lot of other counties to make that.”
Burns says that while there is a long way to go before we might see a non-traditional county make a real breakthrough, he points out that the GAA are actively trying to address the issue.
“The Hurling Development Committee have taken a very, very long-term view on this. Our attitude is that you are never going to have other counties participating in the Liam MacCarthy Cup as long as you don’t have clubs.
“For example, in Armagh, there’s only eight hurling clubs. You would really need 18 or 20 for Armagh to make a serious challenge on getting even into the Christy Ring or Joe McDonagh.
“We are not going to solve this particular challenge overnight or even in the next three or four years.
“It could take maybe 20 years for us to get to the level that we want.”
Kildare discovered how big the step up was to provincial hurling this summer
For Burns, the only way to really grow hurling outside of its traditionally strong bases is to get people playing the game at a young age.
“There’s a desire in many counties for us to develop the game of hurling,” he continued.
“We spend €15 million on coaching and games. You could really double that or treble that if you want to make a serious challenge.
“One of the things we found, and we’ve started hurling in this club (Silverbridge Harps) as well, is that once you do it, the children really do want to play it.
“When they hold that hurling stick and they learn how to hit the sliotar for the first time, or they learn how to score a point or pick it up and it becomes part of the instinct, there is nothing better.
“There is no better game in the world than hurling.”