ASK any member of the hurling fraternity and they’ll not be shy in letting you know just how good the sport is – particularly in comparison to Gaelic football.
Even though I hail from the footballing fraternity it’s hard to argue against the point as high scoring matches, played at a great pace with free-flowing and incisive forward play can make our game sometimes appear quite sedentary.
In his autobiography, former Cork goalkeeper Donal Og Cusack wrote passionately about the game when he stated: “If you could live again you would hurl more, because that is living. You’d pay less attention to the rows and the mortgage and the car and all the daily drudge.
“Hurling is our song and our verse, and when I walk in the graveyard in Cloyne and look at the familiar names on the headstones I know that their owners would want us to hurl with more joy and more exuberance and more abandon than before because life is shorter than the second half of a tournament game that starts at dusk.”
I have watched with envy over the years as football has become bogged down, suffering paralysis through over-analysis, become more defensive and displaying a lack of inventiveness and risk while hurling has continued with the mantra of all-out attack with the only direction the sliotar travelling being forward.
However, the times they may be a changing as some renowned hurling people are now worried about the direction their game is taking, with tactics being employed which could have a detrimental effect on both attendances and entertainment value.
Tipperary’s former All-Ireland-winning manager Liam Sheedy has noted that the game has recently shifted from its once heralded man-to-man approach where individual duals were the order of the day to a more football-like approach with positions on the programme no longer being adhered to and sweepers being employed.
Many people feel ‘the death of football’ was an Ulster invention and will point to under the Hogan stand when six or seventh Tyrone players smothered a Kerry attack with ferocious tackling and unbelievable energy.
Sheedy says this approach is entering hurling and having a negative impact, and was quite noticeable in the drawn National League final between Waterford and Clare where the normal high quality of hurling was not as evident with new defensive strategies being employed.
The recently retired king of hurling Henry Shefflin concurred with Sheedy’s sentiments, saying the quality forwards in the game are now being swallowed up by two or three men in an effort to curtail their impact.
While the words ‘blanket’ and ‘defence’ aren’t being uttered you get the feeling that hurling managers are now gravitating to a more cautious approach which might have implications on the game’s quality in the near future.
For me, hurling has always been about the scoreline with a total emphasis on attack.
This has entertained us for years and, while we would all love that to continue, hurling, like most other sports, has evolved so much that it was only a matter of time before an emphasis on defence was introduced – even if, as Sheedy believes, it may damage the game as a spectacle.
Fitness levels in hurling and football have increased so much that it so much harder now to break the tackle and this can also be seen in rugby, which has been affected by the increased bulk of the participants.
The likes of Ollie Campbell or Simon Geoghegan from a previous era would not survive in the modern game, which is all about unstoppable forces meeting immovable objects.
Manchester United’s home ground used to be known as the Theatre of Dreams but from an entertainment perspective it is falling a long way short of the standards recent teams have produced. As a supporter I can no longer watch due to a tactical approach that might guarantee three points but totally flies in the face of their age old song and belief of “playing football in the Busby way”.
Sport is constantly evolving and not necessarily for the better even though we are fitter, faster and possess better skills, which you would think would equate to more entertainment.
However, according to some this is not necessarily the case and even though the warning signs may be there for hurling I think that we have quite some time to go before we stop enjoying it as a spectacle as even a poor game in hurling can be better than most team sports on offer today.
While you wouldn’t call a meeting of Fermanagh and Antrim a box office event in the preliminary round of the Ulster SFC you would be foolish to surmise that it would not be entertaining. Remember 2014 when they provided us with arguably the game of the Championship?
Both teams have enjoyed successful League campaigns and, while Fermanagh will be justifiable favourites they will underestimate the Saffrons at their peril, as Antrim only suffered one defeat in the League.
Fermanagh, who maintained their position in the second division against the odds, will go in to this game on the back of two excellent draws against Galway and Tyrone which would signal that anything near that level of performance aallied with a home fixture should mean a place in the quarter-finals for Pete McGrath’s men.
