GAA writer for the Independent Conor McKeon joined Ger and Eoin on OTB AM this morning to discuss all things GAA hurling-related.
Ahead of this weekend's opening set of fixtures, McKeon voiced a slight concern for the Munster hurling sides for the upcoming campaign with the new revamped Championship format. However, he does see a positive for the sides within the new set-up.
“It’s tough on Munster because ...if you go back in the era of the All-Ireland quarter-finals, I think more years than not, they would have had four teams in All-Ireland finals.
“But it’s going to work well this way because Munster are suffering but the reason provincial championships have suffered in disguise is because people wanted to protect the Munster championship.
“I don’t know where we’ll be at in a situation where Tipperary are probably second favourites for the All-Ireland, Cork are the Muster champions, Waterford win the all Ireland final last year, Limerick look like they’re coming really, really strong.”
McKeon also observed how most of these Munster sides are of a very similar ilk quality-wise, with not much separating most of the teams.
“So hurling in general, I don’t know whether there’s a leveling off or a lot of teams have come up to a standard where we seem to be entering an era of very competitive games because a lot of teams from this vantage point seem to be at a very similar level.
“I know people are very sceptical about the new championship structure but we’re sitting here and we could say Galway, Kilkenny, Wexford look like they’re going to get out of Leinster and you can take your pick of three in Munster but every provincial championship throws up a result that we’re not expecting and we’re going into provincial championships that will have 11 matches as opposed to four.
“I don’t think this will go as tightly descript as we’re probably all expecting it [to be].”
Download the brand new OffTheBall App in the Play Store & App Store right now! We've got you covered!
Subscribe to OffTheBall's YouTube channel for more videos, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for the latest sporting news and content.
