The end of the regular rounds of the Allianz Hurling League, and time for a summary – good league, or bad?
Well, for the hurlers of Wicklow (Division 3A winners), Roscommon (Division 3B) and Tyrone (Division 4), the answer is unequivocal – yes, good league.
For Dublin hurlers, in the top division, and to a much lesser extent for Kilkenny, Limerick and Clare in Division 2, a good league also.
For the rest, however, for hurling supporters generally, what kind of league was it?
Again, an unequivocal answer – the final round of games in the Division 1 apart, it was poor, close to being very poor.
Let’s take the second division first. Before a ball was pucked Limerick and Clare were the two clear favourites to top this group but it was hoped they would at least be tested.
Limerick romped home unbeaten, had a points differential of +69 which meant an average win of ten points. Clare lost a couple of games, to Limerick and Laois, but more than made up for this in their other games, a points differential of +79 putting even Limerick in the shade.
Some massive wins in this division, indicative of a major imbalance. Consider that Laois were the only other side to finish with a positive scoring differential and you begin to get an idea of the scope of that imbalance.
No point in trying to sugar-coat this – there is still a massive gap between hurling’s haves and have-nots.
In Division 1, again a poor series overall. Consider that Kilkenny were considerably weakened through their whole campaign yet still finished top of the pile and you are left to wonder – just how good is everyone else? How much do they put into the league?
Tipperary’s hopes were dashed almost before they began, losses in their first two games, though admittedly against the two sides who eventually finished on top, Kilkenny and Dublin. They did have the excuse too that they were only back a few weeks from the team holiday, had little or nothing done under their new management team and did improve subsequently.
But what of the rest? Waterford eventually finished third, and no fluke about that, but they too went through the league with a considerable number of absentees. Notable here too, they finished the league with a scoring deficit of -4, the only team other than Wexford and Offaly to do so. Don’t win by much, don’t lose by much.
Defending champions Galway started out with a bang but met the aforementioned Wexford and Offaly early on, so perhaps flattered to deceive. Finished lamely, a lambasting from Tipperary in Galway, then failing again against Waterford on Sunday.
That was actually a good contest, and we saw a few of those in the course of the league, but the quality of the hurling – for the most part – left much to be desired.
Cork? No point even in discussing Cork, who showed no real interest in this league. If they had they would almost certainly have qualified, but instead it was musical chairs from first game to last – he stepped out, I stepped in again…
No, not a good league, not by a long shot and I fear it will be forever thus. The championship is where it’s at in the GAA, this year and every year, the league not even a true warm-up.
For most teams it’s simply a testing-ground and in that sense the big winners in Division 1 this year are probably Dublin, Waterford and (hopefully anyway, from a very selfish perspective) Cork.
As far as the championship is concerned, however, I would read nothing into what we saw for the past three months or so. Absolutely nothing.
Source: http://feeds.examiner.ie/~r/iesportsblog/~3/YuREqTB2sOc/post.aspx
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