The Town End Column: Watching modern hurling becoming a huge chore

The most common outcry I would hear at games over the years is the utterances of the hurling traditionalists in their insistence that “the game is gone”!

This isn’t a new phenomenon by any means and is just a by-product of the evolution of sport, something we've seen more and more in high level sport in the past 20 odd years especially.

Every sport has to evolve over time, whether by means of new talent coming along and raising the standards of what it means to compete at the top level, or the sport’s hierarchy who are there to insure the entertainment value of the product, by helping players excel without putting their wellbeing in danger.

Go to any hurling game the length and breadth of the country these days, and you will have people lamenting the state of the game at the moment.

It’s hard to disagree in some ways with that kind of outlook with the way the game is starting to go in its current guise.
The game is now all about possession with teams using the hand pass and running the ball to take possession down the field before getting into a position to score. That’s it in a nutshell.

Okay, that’s a gross over-simplification, but what it leads to is an increased level of contact between players with the middle third of modern hurling becoming a mosh pit of sorts, with every team deploying the bulk of their numbers to the combat area in a bid to win the possession game.

The way the game has changed - even in the last decade - is incredible to think about.

Over the Christmas I continued my long standing tradition of watching old games, whether it be looking at the Toomevara team of the 90’s and noughties, or Tipperary’s recent All-Ireland’s since 2010, and the difference in which hurling is approached now by players and coaches is really unbelievable.

It’s night and day. I would urge anyone who regularly watches games - at intercounty level in particular - to go back and watch the 2014 All-Ireland final between Tipp and Kilkenny on YouTube.

It’s like watching a different sport in essence! Modern day coaches would be working up an anxious sweat looking at the players use of the ball, the carelessness of the areas in which they are winding up deliveries from, the unwillingness to carry possession and draw a man.

That is considered by many hurling people as one of the most entertaining and exciting All-Ireland finals ever, and in comparison to the fare which has subsequently unfolded in the last five or six years, it can’t be compared.

Use of the hurl is almost secondary in a lot of cases these days with the much maligned use of the handpass coming under massive scrutiny, largely due to Limerick’s proficiency and dominance as a result of the Paul Kinnerk inspired tactics of the last five years.

In essence, careless use of possession for players at intercounty level these days is a one-way ticket to being dropped off a starting 15 and in my opinion, the GAA hierarchy are going to have to address the application of the rules as the jeopardy and entertainment value of the game is being wiped out by the approach of coaches.

Limerick can’t receive too much of the blame for the way they have changed the way the game is played. It’s a credit to them really.

They have seen a grey area in the game and with the onset of a golden generation, they have revolutionised how the game is played.

This isn’t a criticism of the Treaty in any fashion. I’m not trying to have a dig at the way they play the game. They are perfectly entitled to within the rules and the way the game is officiated.

If the shoe was on the other foot and Tipperary were winning All-Ireland’s. I wouldn’t care one jot how they were being won.
Limerick are the best team in Ireland at the moment and the entertainment value or traditions of the game don’t cross their mind, I’m sure. And why should they?

For me though, hurling is coming close to being unwatchable - with the odd exception - as teams just try to outmuscle each other, carrying the ball into contact, running through the lines and hand passing the ball to death (illegally in most cases).

We are quickly going down the same root as Gaelic football and that is a real concern for the powers that be at the top of the GAA food-chain.

Football has been completely ruined in the last decade. The obvious reason being the Jim McGuinness Donegal team which won an All-Ireland back in 2012, playing defensive and counter attacking football.

That set the template for many teams to mimic what that Donegal team applied to their games - 13 or 14 men behind the ball and breaking in numbers when possession was overturned. This is modern day hurling now.

The blind eye being turned to the handpass rule and the spare arm tackle, and the steps rule in hurling at the moment is completely ripping the soul from the way it is played.

I was covering the Tipperary U20 game against Clare in Cusack Park recently, and at one point in the second half there was a player down injured after a passage of play.

I looked up from my notepad a few seconds later only to look over at the far end of the pitch, and to my disgust there was only the Clare goalkeeper inside the 45 yard line.

Every player had been sucked up the pitch trying to run the ball and I had to remind myself it was a hurling match I was at!
Possession is nearly more than nine tenths of the law now, and to strike the ball long in possession now is almost blasphemous.

Again, I can understand why teams are doing it because Limerick have shown that there is a gap in the officiating and/or the rules from the top down, and until Croke Park addresses the issue, we’re simply watching two sides of the same coin.

Hurling and Gaelic Football are part of the GAA’s identity and for the longest time they were two completely different sports, even though they were a part of the same organisation.

These days though, it is getting harder and harder to differentiate between the games in the way they are played as the entertainment value has plummeted year on year since these tactics have become commonplace.

In an amateur setting, the amount of physicality in the game is having a massively detrimental effect in terms of the injuries being accrued across the sport. Aside from Limerick, every team in the Liam McCarthy is picking up huge amounts of injuries, due in large part to the physical contact of the game at present.

This isn’t me wanting to go back to the game of old. Every sport undergoes changes and evolutions, but the rules in which they operate have to serve as a tool to help the game flourish, and that isn’t happening right now.

The game isn’t gone yet, but if we’re not very careful, it soon could be.