Austin Gleeson has felt the sting of inter-county summers ending too early – and thinks it’s something the GAA should address to come up with a better structure for the senior hurling Championship.
Gleeson wasn’t involved this season when, after beating Cork in their opening game, Waterford’s defeat to Limerick on May 26 saw them finish fourth in the Munster SHC and exit the Championship along with fifth-placed Tipperary.
While Gleeson acknowledges teams must earn their way through in the race for the Liam MacCarthy Cup he feels the competitive nature of Munster especially, along with the condensed inter-county calendar, makes it feel like the Championship passes some teams by.
“I do think it needs to be looked at,” he said.
“Having Waterford and Tipp knocked out of the Championship that early... I remember playing my first game in 2014 I think it was the 25th or 26th of May and now you’re nearly gone by that stage. I just think there needs to be a change, maybe bring an extra week in.
“If you finish last I suppose you maybe don’t deserve to go through, and we’ve been in that position the last couple of years. Maybe the fourth-placed teams play the Joe McDonagh [finalists] instead of the third [placed teams] and then whoever wins those games – and no disrespect to the Joe McDonagh but the fourth-placed teams in each province would be expecting to win those games – would then play the third-placed teams. So this year you might have got Waterford v Wexford and Galway v Cork.
“You would get extra games in for each county. Obviously if you finish fourth you play three weeks in-a-row but ask any player and they want to play. I remember a few years ago we played four weeks in a row. It doesn’t really make much of a difference.
“I just think it’s very condensed and pushing the All-Ireland out a couple of weeks would make a massive difference. You could structure it differently. Munster is Titanic and any of the five teams could come out and, besides from Limerick at the stage, any of the five teams could be not qualifying.”
While he admits to having no clear vision of how to reshape the Championship, Gleeson wouldn’t be adverse to a return to the provincial knock-out and All-Ireland backdoor system that was in operation before the introduction of the round robin series.
“I don’t know what way they could do it but I found nothing wrong with the old system,” he said.
“I loved playing the old system. In Munster, whether your first match was a quarter-final or semi-final, if you had one off-day you could always go back in the back door and regroup. It happened to us in 2017 – we were beaten by Cork and we ended up getting to the All-Ireland final.
“I just think it’s small bit unfair on teams, and maybe I’m wearing my Waterford hat and we haven’t qualified enough but I do think there needs to be a bit of a re-jig done in some way.”
Gleeson stepped away from the Waterford panel after last year’s Championship, a decision he says was about “getting the body right and the mind right” and one he stuck with despite manager Davy Fitzgerald leaving the door open for him to come back.
He is ready to return for 2025, something he’s been fairly sure would happen since going to Waterford’s Championship win over Cork at Walsh Park in April.
“To be honest, I struggled that morning, I was hemming and hawing about whether to go or not,” said the Mount Sion clubman.
“I actually didn’t think it would have as much of an effect as it did on me, but it was a good thing in a way that it did have that much of an effect because it meant I missed it and that the year out I took would only be a year. Hopefully I’ll get through club and be right going back next year if management want me.
“I love playing with Waterford. It’s an absolute privilege to play for Waterford. There are thousands of people round the county that would give anything to put on the Waterford jersey. I absolutely love doing that.
“It’s just I needed a break for myself. It was starting to take a toll on my body and mentally I probably wasn’t there either and it would have been unfair on management and players if I went back last year.
“It wouldn’t have been right, I wouldn’t have had the drive to get myself as fit shape as I needed to be and maybe that would have affected the people around so I took the step back.”
Austin Gleeson was speaking as Pinergy announced the switch-on of a new 27.52 kWp solar installation on the roof of Mount Sion GAA Club. This partnership sees Mount Sion GAA Club’s energy needs met by the installation with excess energy being exported to back to the electricity grid to supply the local community in Waterford city.
