Clare manager Brian Lohan has welcomed the Munster Council decision to revise their round-robin championship schedule to avoid teams playing three weeks in a row. Under the original draw, Clare and Cork were down to play on the weekends of May 8th, 15th and 22nd.
“We had a concern about the three matches in a row in the round robin and the disadvantages for certain counties,” he said, “and that was unanimously changed by Munster Council so that no team will have more than two matches in succession.”
There has been no statement yet from the council because they are tidying up scheduling issues but sources confirmed that the decision had been taken last week and the revised fixtures will be released in the next day or so.
The fate of counties with three and –in the first year of the format –four matches in successive weeks was noteworthy. Both Tipperary and Waterford, who had four successive weeks' activity in 2018, failed to emerge from the province.
Even three matches in a row saw a fall-off in performance for many teams.
Lohan says that the return of the championship round robin, which had been suspended for the years of the pandemic, at least makes things fairer. Last year, as Clare came through the qualifiers, they had a punishing run of matches ending in a narrow defeat by Cork.
"It's not so bad when everyone is in the same boat. If everyone has to play the same number of matches in a row, that's a level playing field, but if you've got one team playing four games in five weeks and another playing two, that's not a fair fight. It happened us last year and we lost. It happened to Waterford and they won but ended up playing Limerick the fourth week running and it caught up with them."
There are aspects of the broader championship scheduling that he doesn’t find as satisfactory.
Split season
For the first time this year, the GAA will get a close look at the split-season model, introduced as a necessity during the summer months of the pandemic's first year and then repeated with a little less success in 2021, a circumstance again dictated by the public health restrictions.
The buzz around the county and the whole country was great in September. The excitement in the schools and everywhere. July, I'm not sure
All going well in the months ahead, the county season will end in July with the clubs taking over for meaningful activity in the summer.
Lohan misses the September excitement of All-Irelands, and although he understands that the practical reason is to give the clubs more time, he questions whether it will have the desired effect.
“The buzz around the county and the whole country was great in September. The excitement in the schools and everywhere. July, I’m not sure. I can’t understand the rush to get competitions over.
"Having the All-Ireland in July won't stop that for July, August and even September some county boards won't have any matches, and yet there's this real condensed championship, playing week after week – four matches in six weeks or five in seven and then nothing for the rest of the year. I don't know why there's that rush to have the All-Ireland over in July.
“From a Clare perspective, our county final wasn’t until November and we were out of championship since late July. If the aim was to finish by September or October it didn’t happen.”
Intervene
He wonders will Croke Park intervene to drive the new schedule but, in the meantime, Clare face into the league with a number of players injured. Tony Kelly. who has been an All Star for the past two seasons despite not featuring in an All-Ireland semi-final during that period, will miss most of the league.
Other front-line players in recovery are Aidan McCarthy, David Fitzgerald, John Conlon, Peter Duggan – returned from Australia but still rehabbing an ankle problem – and Shane O'Donnell, who is still monitoring concussion issues.
It may give opportunities for others but, in the non-stop scheduling of the modern season, no team can afford to be without too many of their players.
Clare have had two very competitive seasons, losing out to Waterford and Cork, the counties who went on to reach the All-Ireland final, an achievement admittedly qualified by the scale of Limerick’s victory both years.
This year they and Wexford have been switched from Division 1B to 1A, which on paper is the stronger of the two sections.
"There's a few teams we haven't played in the league for a while: Limerick, Galway, Cork and Offaly. Which is grand but then again when you look at last year on paper, no one expected Antrim to make such an impact. They beat us and we beat Kilkenny so there's never much in it. You can be lulled into making assumptions."
