An Investigation into Kerry Hurling

Coming from the most successful hurling province in ireland what is going on down there? They still havent even made a dent in another county in how long?



Are football people holding down hurling?

Is hurling people not doing enough in Kerry?

Has the gaa failed Kerry hurling by lack of promotion and resource?



I have my own thoughts on this, such as i believe a lot has to be answered for from the Kerry football people, however i must highligt you are not the only ones - the same could be said for KK hurling people with regards football.

The GAA failing to encourage and promote the game i would say is the other failure.

Im not getting at the good hurling people of North Kerry who have a good league set up and work hard promoting the game i am merely trying to highlight the flaws of others who call themselves GAA people. You the north Kerry people have produced what i believe to be the Declan Browne of hurling with Shane Brick scorede 11 points in casment last year.

Just wondering if this investigation will extend to the 20 or so other counties whose boards couldn't give a toss about hurling?

Your totally missing the point, the 20 odd other counties do not border cork, limerick and clare three of the hurling so called elite.

In recent years weve seen carlow, Mayo and Dublin make strides in hurling development yet they dont and arent surrounded by huring super powers.

This is an investigation into the fact that there is 6 counties in munster and only kerry cant mix it with hurlings best, id say this is grounds for concern.

Even Derry and Down have benefitted from being beside Antrim, they are beside some of the greatest counties in hurling history.

In Kerry football is now the sport of choice and has been for years.

Sad to say we cannot force people to play hurling, although I do agree that central council could do a LOT more to promote the game.

i wouldn't claim to know all that the Tyrone county board do year in year out to promote hurling but i do think they take an enormous amount of unnecessary criticism on this subject and i would have no doubt it is replicated in other counties.

The last two AGMs have dealt with the promotion of hurling in a big way or at least tried. Largely it is falling on deaf ears. What i do know is that there are a lot of hurlers in Tyrone who are cute c*ts. They make themselves available for the first few training sessions of the year and when the free boots training gear tracksuits etc are handed out they piss off into the wilderness never to be heard off again. Then when they are contacted they make up some lame excuse as to why they wont play.

A good example of that was this year, the team that won the Larry Meagher cup wouldnt even beat the best 15-20 hurlers available in Tyrone. But because these guys didnt like the guy who was taking training they pulled out of the squad claiming his training methods were out of date. The real truth was this guy was a decent hurler in his day and probably fought with most of these guys (and won- he was a hard b*****d) so they didn't like taking orders from him. Had he not taken on the role of trainer along with a few other good hurling guys then chances are Tyrone wouldn't have fielded a team this year at all. I know the guy who was trainer very well and as an ex county board coach his methods and so on wouldn't have been bad at all but because a few big shots with influence don't want him his services are no longer required.

In steps another guy (probably at a price) and suddenly all is rosey in the garden again the team is committed and playing for each other, when really the spoilt brats were only now playing to their full potential which they could easily have done under the previous management had they wanted to.

Another reason for the state of hurling in Tyrone was the arrival of the era of the 'paid' football managers. My own club was a thriving hurling club and i spent a good 20 years of my life playing for them and loved every minute of it. Suddenly it was fashionable to have a big name football manager who was getting remunerated for his trouble - of course it was only travelling expenses they were receiving wink wink nudge nudge. And one of the terms of these guys 'employment' was they were given full control of club affairs one of which was no dual players it was football or nothing.

Our club declined rapidly, all our best hurlers - and we had some very good ones - were on the senior football team so at times we were lucky to field at all. Eventually we went out of business with not enough players. For quite some time we took no active part in and senior competitions in Tyrone. The only hurling in the club was a few of us training u10 lads. Thankfully in the last few years we have witnessed something of a revival and are fielding a senior team - we also had an u14 team contest a county final!!!!

So although its easy to blame the county boards - there may be more to it than than that.