Tommy Walsh told OTB AM that club fixtures are being overshadowed by county concerns.
“Now is the time to sort out the club structures for next year, because we need that 50/50 I keep talking about.” Tommy spoke in terms of how the issue was affecting the parish, talking about the joy that can be seen locally.
“If we ever win a championship, whether it’s from under 13 right up to adult level, they’ll come down in a trailer from the church. That goes on right around the country. The point I’m trying to make is - let’s sort out the club for next year because we could easily forget about it.”
"There are older people, babies in that photo.. The whole parish rallies around.. That's happening all over the country."
Talking Feile with Tommy Walsh https://t.co/AvAyTRJ2lu
— Off The Ball (@offtheball) July 12, 2018
Since retiring from county, Tommy said that he has had three great years of club hurling but that this year was a disaster. Suffering not only as a fan but a player, he said the biggest issue is “because you just don’t know when you’re playing” and while they’re back training now since the championship is on soon he’s out injured.
Having trained for five or six months, he is missing out now while there are matches going on and big numbers at training. He also said that “[it] would even be better if you just said it’s starting and it’ll be over in 2 months. At least you have a focus.”
The other worry with the overlapping times is that clubs results may be suffering. Monaghan may have come up with an innovative solution for this. The league features a new scoring system. Five-Point games will feature in this system for Senior and Intermediate teams. Each team will play four times with their county players before the end of April, with those games carrying five points for a win and two for a draw while the rest of the games will continue as normal as two points for a win and one for a draw.
You can watch OTB AM from 7:45 every weekday morning on our Facebook, YouTube and Periscope channels. If you would like to see more sporting videos, like and subscribe any of our pages or log onto offtheball.com.
By Hugh Farrell
