Some counties are sabotaging the promotion of hurling in their scheduling of fixtures, according to the head of the Hurling Development Committee.
Chairperson Terry Reilly made the claim during the course of Wednesday's HDC media briefing, during which the GAA outlined its long-term ambition to expand the number of counties competing for Liam MacCarthy and announced that a new National Head of Hurling would soon be recruited.
Antrim native Reilly, a former hurler with the Gortnamona club in Belfast who was appointed HDC chairman by GAA President Jarlath Burns, said they intended to assist counties in rolling out hurling fixtures and hoped to see a change in attitudes among counties where football is dominant.
"You have people that are very willing to work with you, who are very willing to be the people on the ground, that if they get the right support, if they get us buying into what they see being deployed on the ground, and helping hurling locally, will row in behind it.
"In relation to the bigger picture, yes, there are challenges throughout. The problem that we have is that we have counties that are carrying out acts of sabotage by not facilitating hurling fixtures.
"How do we go about redressing that? We need to assure those counties that we're there to help, that we're there to assist, so we can get them the confidence to try to roll out as many hurling fixtures as they possibly can.
"They'll see the programmes that we intend to roll out and we would hope that they would have a change of heart in relation to how they've treated hurling before.
"I believe that an initiative like this, being driven from the top in Croke Park, will help. It's our job to make that happen."
Asked to instance any examples of counties sabotaging hurling, Reilly said there was plenty of anecdotal evidence to hand.
"Anecdotally, what we've heard is that whenever there is a night set aside for hurling fixtures, and then there are football re-fixtures that might come along, they are put on that (hurling) night. That would be a case in point for exactly that scenario."
At the briefing in Croke Park, Burns set the target of increasing the number of counties capable of competing for the Liam MacCarthy Cup by the association's 150th anniversary in 2034, stressing that it was "a very long-term project."
At present, 17 counties compete for the top prize, with 11 competing across the Munster and Leinster championships, and the six Joe McDonagh Cup counties technically in the hunt, with the winners and runners-up facing the third place from either province.
The latter is a fixture which has thrown up its fair share of one-sided matches and has often been proposed for abolition, though which did yield a famous shock in 2019 when Laois stunned Dublin.
Below the Joe McDonagh level, the challenge of promoting hurling grows considerably stiffer, with Burns admitting that a lot of clubs are "set in their ways."
Reilly confirmed that they intended to install hurling-specific GPOs (Games Promotion Officers) in football-centric counties.
And he added that the HDC's role is partly to evangelise for the game in counties where opportunity is limited, adding that there would be an onus on counties to promote hurling.
"We need to be making sure that when we have our roadshow, that you're going to have Brian Cody, Neil McManus, all of those strong advocates for hurling...and the likes of Declan Bogue and Ciaran Bolger who have been involved in setting up clubs. Explaining to them, the benefits of it.
"We need to sell the product, we have the best product... I'm sure ye all witnessed the semi-finals, the second-half of the Clare and Kilkenny game was something else.
"And the full 70 minutes of the Cork and Clare game in the final but also the Cork-Limerick game in the semi-final. It was just unbelievable. It was off the Richter scale.
"And why would Killybegs or anywhere in Donegal not want a child to have an opportunity to play that?
"I know they're football-dominated counties but we need to work with them and try, as best we possibly can, for them to reciprocate and to buy in.
"The other thing is that there's service level agreements between the funding and games department in Croke Park and the counties and we need to make sure that they're accountable for the spend of that and that they're promoting hurling as well."
.@MartyMofficial heard from Brian Cody, @Neilmcmanus88 and GAA president Jarlath Burns at the announcement that the association is seeking a National Head of Hurling | Full story https://t.co/3myD4H6ntJ #GAA pic.twitter.com/1tj30DQGsb
— RTÉ GAA (@RTEgaa) September 18, 2024
Reilly's Antrim, located far from the centre of the hurling universe in the southern half of the country, has long been a hardy enclave of the game in the north east, one of only 10 counties to reach an All-Ireland final in the past 72 years.
They're currently ensconced in the Leinster hurling championship, claiming the scalp of Wexford in 2024, and operating in Division 1B. However, from a promotional point of view, Reilly would favour the restoration of the Ulster hurling championship, a competition once monopolised by Antrim.
"Neil (McManus) has been a huge advocate of that for some time and thankfully Antrim is in a position now where our senior hurlers have been holding their own in Leinster and we're in Division 1B.
"Obviously for the promotion of hurling, the Ulster hurling championship would be huge for it, so yes, I would advocate for that."
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