Offaly hurling seems to be in trouble at almost every level

Despite plenty of enthusiasm and support from the local community last Sunday, Drumcullen's roller coaster season finally came to an end at the hands of John Locke's of Kilkenny, who comprehensively secured the Leinster Junior Hurling championship and in doing so became the eighth Kilkenny winner in the last nine years of this competition. Offaly clubs have long become accustomed to struggling against Kilkenny opposition in any competition, however seeing the Kilkenny junior champions overcome the Offaly Intermediate winners so easily must surely have been a red flag to those interested in the future of hurling in Offaly and the latest in a long series of such worrying milestones. After a year in which the senior county team showed more promise in the championship than has been the case for several seasons, it would be easy to ignore the problems at the various roots of the game. However these are problems that look set to spill over into the senior structure very soon, possibly even this year. Quite simply, the whole system for propagating hurling in Offaly appears rotten to the core. Firstly, the club scene clearly has several issues that need addressing. Dual clubs are really struggling to cope with the demands of a five game round robin campaign, and in an effort to try and redress the balance, the senior championship has now effectively been reduced to a straight knockout campaign where high quality games are few and far between. This year's two county semi-finals featured one game that was over after fifteen minutes and another where the game descended into an ugly encounter (Tullamore v Kilcormac/Killoughey) marred by a series of incidents. The county final also turned out to be a relatively damp squib, while Coolderry went on to suffer a bad defeat to Raharney in the club championship. Drumcullen did win two games, but those were against the Intermediate champions of Westmeath and what were effectively the junior champions of Dublin. Nominally, Thomas Davis were intermediate champions (albeit after Kevin's hurling club were thrown out of the competition) but as Dublin plays a senior B championship, there were 24 teams playing in higher grades, just as there are 24 teams playing senior and intermediate in Offaly and the junior champions would be the 25th ranked club. At underage, new lows appear to come thick and fast. It has now been eight years since Offaly beat either Kilkenny, Wexford or Dublin in a meaningful knockout game at minor level, the couple of years of promise at under-21 have completely evaporated, as evidenced by the farce in Kilkenny last summer. Meanwhile further down the line, prestigious competitions like the Tony Forristal Tournament for under-14 hurlers continue to yield little or nothing in terms of success for Offaly teams, at a time when supposedly similar counties like Waterford are thriving with six final appearances in seven years. Even at county level, last Saturday's result against NUI Galway in Banagher might not have caused too many people to lose sleep, but it did go to show how bereft of genuine options Joe Dooley really is. Even at the best of times Offaly haven't had a lot of high quality subs to choose from. However, a beating of that nature at the hands of a good but unspectacular college team suggests that not too many starters from last Saturday are realistically ready for NHL competition, never mind championship. In the case of many of those hurlers, they are simply too young to offer a realistic option to senior management and their time may come again. However that situation would be fine if there were several Offaly hurlers involved with college teams who were unavailable – but this isn't the case either. Faithful County hurlers have been playing less and less of a part in the Fitzgibbon Cup for some time and now that most of the UL group who hurled together for some time have graduated, there could be less than a half dozen Offaly hurlers starting for Fitzgibbon colleges in that competition next week. Going unrepresented in colleges like UCC and Cork IT is one thing, but to be without a starter for either NUIG or UCD, as will probably be the case, illustrates that young Offaly hurlers simply aren't able to compete with their counterparts at that level. Even Athlone IT, who will be hurling in the Ryan Cup, build their hopes around Galway hurlers and contain very few Offaly natives. Of course any article highlighting problems should make some effort at highlighting solutions, however this is something that will have to come from within the clubs themselves, since only they can really improve the quality of 12 and 13 year-old players entering the system. Further on up the chain, more grades of competition at underage to ensure that 90 per cent of clubs can field their own sides and an examination of the under-21 championship to make it relevant is needed. Above all, the senior championship has clearly become too deep for the amount of talent that there is in the county. Cutting the top tier from twelve clubs to ten and doing the same at intermediate would improve standards all the way down, while club hurlers need to spend more time hurling and less time waiting on their county players. Specific competitions that would be played in the summer on the same weekends as the county team are playing could be one way to keep players interested and prevent some of the messing that is the club challenge match circuit. With the National Hurling League just around the corner, many of those at the top table will find it difficult to look beyond the fortunes of the standard bearers. Indeed, four home league games, all against the most beatable opposition in the league, offer the prospect of a decent spring for Offaly, one which could paper over the cracks. However, for real progress to be made, a lot more work will need to be done in the coming weeks, months and indeed years.