Hurling’s perennial loser model

The ref had barely blown the whistle last Sunday when some of the more excitable scribes were saying that this Limerick teams achievement put them among the greats. Indeed, wrote one, if the 65 they should have got against Kilkenny had been awarded last year we’d be lookin at three in a row. Where would you start with this hype? A glance at the actual stats would tell you that but for a bad decision or bad luck here and there you could reasonably claim that the Kerry footballers could have won 10 in a row between 75 and 86 or that kilkenny could have won 8 or 9 in a row say between 69 and 75 not to mention more recent domination. But of course we heard all this before when Clare won a couple. No. A far more sober analysis of the treatysiders as they like to describe themselves would tell the real story. Take the period between 1960 and 2020 which is reasonable. Not alone did Limerick never feature nationally but they were never even competitive in Munster where Cork and Tipp showed the way. And they don’t have the excuse of no hurling pedigree. In fact they entered the sixties with a good record thanks to the exploits of the likes of Mick Mackey. So they were no Leitrim. Speaking of excuses we could say that when they beat an injury ravaged kilkenny in 73 they got away with a foul on the keeper for a vital goal. Anyway, all this is smoke and mirrors. The real problem for the gaa now is that the county model is unsustainable. If the perennial loser counties were going to rise up it would have happened by now. Turning a blind eye and saying they have the same chance as the rest is plainly absurd. In political terms it’s the argument that now the African countries are free they can be as successful as the west or that now American blacks have the vote there’s no reason for them to lag behind whites. These theories have been well debunked by social commentators who explain that levelling things up is never that simple. The stark reality is that succeeding generations of the gaa’s players grow up knowing they can never win an all Ireland. This is ridiculous and is a problem that will never be solved by current head in the sand mind sets. If the county boundaries of Ireland were being redrawn today they would bear no relation to the current geographical layout. The same for the provinces. New thinking which challenges the status quo and the vested interests is urgently needed