Waterford find that rough winds and championship structures do shake the darling buds of May

Peter Queally walked into the press conference room in Páirc Uí Chaoimh with his hands buried deep in his pockets. The blank look on his face was just a front. Eight months of training and more than 10 months of planning since his appointment last August had just gone up in smoke.

He spoke about refereeing decisions that reared up in their face and how proud he was of his players, but he didn’t become animated until the conversation turned to the championship structure. At one time or another since its introduction in 2018, the provincial round-robin system has been good for every other county in hurling’s established top nine, except Waterford.

Waterford selector Dan Shanahan and manager Peter Queally saw long months of efforts come to naught against Cork. Photograph: James Crombie/Inpho

For the GAA, for hurling, for the coffers of the Munster Council, for TV viewing figures, for attendances, for lovers of the game and rubber-neckers alike, for excitement that doesn’t need to be spun, for shocks and other stuff that defy explanation, it has been good for everyone. Except Waterford.

In six seasons of the format, they have yet to emerge from the maze. In the two years of the pandemic, when that system was in cold storage, Waterford reached an All-Ireland final, a Munster final and an All-Ireland semi-final. In the year before the system was introduced, they also reached an All-Ireland final. All of that might be coincidental.

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Queally’s core point was about being habitually eliminated in May and how lunatic it was for intercounty teams to be finished before the summer has started. Long before now, he was familiar with that feeling: much of Queally’s career as a Waterford player was in the era of straight knock-out when May was a lethal month all over the country, in football and hurling. In Queally’s 14 years in a Waterford jersey he made just 20 appearances in the championship. That was a different kind of brutality.

It is a much-changed environment now. Because the demands are heavier, players who commit to intercounty teams are taking a far greater risk with their time. Queally said that he had conversations with players who couldn’t face a winter of training and meaningless league matches, only for their year to be over in the last month of spring.

There was little consolation for Waterford and Shane Bennett after their defeat by Cork. Photograph: James Crombie/Inpho

He also made the point, which others have made before, that every football team is still alive in the championship. None of the teams that qualified for the Sam Maguire can be eliminated before the middle of June. The stragglers in the Tailteann Cup will be gone next weekend, but the rest will soldier on.

Queally’s complaint is the function of an unresolved calendar. This year, the group stages of the hurling championship started before the end of Lent and finished before Gary Lineker. The general kindness of the weather was a miracle.

Consider this ridiculous anomaly. The Derry footballers played their first championship match in 48 days at the weekend. Yet the group stages of the provincial hurling championships were rattled off in 36 days: all 25 matches. It’s like slugging a pint of stout in one swallow. Don’t stop at the G.

Queally’s suggestion for a change in the format, though, went beyond reservations about the calendar. He proposed that the provincial hurling championships should be run off on the same footing as the provincial football championships, followed by a round-robin phase in which – just like football – counties from different provinces would be grouped together.

“Imagine the crowds that would go to a Waterford-Wexford game,” he said, “or a Waterford-Kilkenny game.”

Since the GAA started changing championship formats around the turn of the century, nothing has been off the table and maybe Queally’s proposal will eventually get an airing.

This year’s Leinster hurling championship lacked zest because the usual shock results were absent. The Munster hurling championship was deflated by a couple of blowouts and Clare’s weary implosion. It was the first year in six when both round-robin championships failed to meet feverish expectations. Looking into the future, a five-out-of-six strike rate is unsustainable.

Is that a cause for worry? The Leinster football championship has survived, unaltered, on strike rate of about three or four out of 15 since 2010. Maybe that’s being generous. I lost count. The Munster football championship has continued at a similar basement level of punter/player/pundit satisfaction over the same period. That’s evidently safe from reform too.

Cork’s Brian Hayes goes past Gavin Fives and goalkeeper Billy Nolan of Waterford to score his side's opening goal on Sunday. Photograph: James Crombie/Inpho

It is tough for Waterford to peer into Leinster where the scrap for third place is typically between Dublin and Wexford, both of whom operate around Waterford’s level. In the round-robin format, Galway have not always been formidable either. Waterford would flourish among that set of teams.

But the attractiveness of the Munster championship is precisely that it is so cut-throat. Queally made that point too. “We know how unforgiving the Munster championship is,” he said. “That’s the beauty of it.” In a later answer he said, “We all want the cut and thrust of the Munster championship. We don’t want to take from that.”

In that case, two teams must suffer every year. It is heartbreaking that Waterford have suffered so much, but there is no way of softening it. The current format has broken attendance records in Munster for the third year in a row. It is the suspense and the smell of blood that brings the crowds back, year after year.

But Queally is right about May. That is a scandal.