Neil McManus has claimed that Ulster could have a ‘brilliant’ hurling championship up and running as early as next year ‘if the will was there’ to bring it back.
The former Antrim attacker, currently a performance coach with Davy Fitzgerald’s Saffrons setup, is part of the GAA’s new Hurling Development Committee and is all for a revived Ulster championship.
Whilst Antrim continue to compete in Leinster, an Ulster senior hurling championship hasn’t taken place since 2017 when it was suspended for three years, never actually making a return.
Competition structures aren’t currently part of the HDC’s remit but committee chairman Terry Reilly, another Antrim man, said they will ‘review structures...at some point’ in the future.
McManus reckons getting the Ulster championship back up and running could be done easily and as soon as 2025.
“The games that you would have between Derry, Down...think about where Donegal are at now, how competitive they would be,” said McManus.
“If they seeded it, and I drew it up once because I’m talking about it a lot, if we seeded that competition properly, it would be a brilliant hurling competition and it could be done in a festival of hurling, where we do it over two or three weeks.
“It’s not going to have a huge impact on the calendar.
“It could be done in 2025. All you need is the will of the Ulster Council.”
Down competed in this year’s Joe McDonagh Cup, Derry and Tyrone played in the Christy Ring Cup, Armagh, Donegal and Monaghan were in the Nickey Rackard competition and Cavan and Fermanagh operated at the lower Lory Meagher Cup grade.
Fermanagh won that competition, Donegal won the Rackard Cup and Derry contested the Ring Cup final for the third time in four seasons.
Crucially, for McManus, all of those competitions are over by early June.
“As you go down the competitions and the tiers, they finish earlier and earlier, there is room in the calendar,” said the Cushendall man of where the Ulster championship might fit in.
“There would be three rounds probably, and because of the way we have to seed the teams to make sure the games are competitive, not all teams would be playing at the same time.
“But it could be worked really quickly. We could have the Ulster championship back in 2025 if the will was there.”
On his role with the HDC, and the challenge they face of growing and developing the game of hurling in areas and counties where it hasn’t traditionally flourished, McManus is optimistic.
“There’s about 30 new hurling clubs in Ulster over the last decade, people mightn’t actually be aware of that,” he said.
McManus said the problem for hurling in Ulster as he sees it is twofold; a lack of participation at underage level and a lack of county teams competing at a high level.
“For example, the Uachtaran’s son, Jarly Og (Burns), is, if not the best, one of the best hurlers in Armagh, you probably know that anyway, but where’s the incentive for him to play hurling for Armagh?” said McManus.
“That’s the truth. How is Karl McKeegan, my own clubmate, supposed to convince him to come and play hurling for Armagh? It’s a very tough job.
“I think you have to start at the very bottom in terms of the underage and the schools.”
Belfast is an obvious area of concern.
“Nearly a million people live in greater Belfast now,” outlined McManus.
“Participation is growing in some areas but it’s actually dwindling in what would be the traditionally strong areas of West Belfast.
“We have to do more with West Belfast. Gaelfast has boots on the ground but I’m not sure that we’ve implemented a strategy there at all, or given them something to go after that we’ll see a benefit in the future. It has to be long-term, this is going to take 20, 30 years.”
Back at the front of the house, the Antrim senior hurlers have a new manager in Davy Fitzgerald and McManus has joined him as a performance coach.
“I think we need to learn as much from Davy as we can,” said McManus.
“I’m really happy that so many of the backroom are Antrim people because we need to get the information, the know-how, from Davy and keep it within Antrim, build up our own capabilities so we can look after our own affairs in the future.
“I don’t like to think of success in winning and losing games. I think success should always be long-term. Developing the next generation of coaches and management for Antrim would definitely be one of the successes.
“Also, putting in place structures at underage which you see Clare reaping the benefit from at the minute.”
