Munster Senior Hurling League joins list of unfinished GAA competitions
Robin Mounsey of Clare in action against Conor O'Callaghan in action in the Co-Op Superstores Munster Hurling League before the competition was called off for this year. Picture: Eóin Noonan/Sportsfile
IF you were asked the link between British football clubs Coventry City and St Mirren and the hurling teams of Cork, Limerick and Waterford, the answer would be unlikely to immediately come to mind.
In 1975, the 16-team Anglo-Scottish Cup was inaugurated and it ran for six years, though with attendances subject to the law of diminishing returns. After Chesterfield beat Notts County in the 1981 final, the competition was shelved but, six years later, an attempt at a revival of sorts was made.
Rebranded the Anglo-Scottish Challenge, it was to pit the two domestic cup winners against each other in a two-legged affair – both finals were won by underdogs as Coventry beat Tottenham Hotspur and St Mirren (the only Scottish winners of the previous incarnation) overcame Dundee United.
However, on December 22, 1987, just 5,331 people turned out at Highfield Road for a 1-1 draw and the return leg was never played.
Part of the reason the tie remained uncompleted was that it would be a loss-maker due to the lack of a sponsor. Unfortunately for Co-op SuperStores, who provide patronage for the Munster Hurling League, not even that was enough to bring about a conclusion to the pre-season competition.
With Group 2 having started on January 2 as Waterford beat Kerry, the Déise then secured a place in the final as they beat Tipperary five days later. With the Limerick-Cork game, initially scheduled for that Sunday too, postponed due to fog in Mallow, there was already the strange situation of one section being decided before the other started.
While Clare’s two matches were played, with Limerick and Cork both beating the Banner, the group remained unresolved and two more attempts to play the final game in Rathkeale, failed due to ice and rain respectively.
As the Allianz Hurling League is approaching fast and Limerick had a game against Tipperary set for this weekend – a fundraiser for the Dillon Quirke Foundation – there was simply no room to get two games played.
The Munster league joins a list of GAA competitions that failed to reach a denouement. The most recent that jump to mind are of course those in train when the Covid-19 pandemic hit the world four years ago. Second-level All-Irelands championships did not take place while the knockout stages of the national hurling league were abandoned – the teams that topped the two sections of Division 1, Limerick and Clare, were due to meet in the Munster championship quarter-final and that game doubled up as the league final.
The following year, the tight timeframe meant that there was no slot for the final – with Galway and Kilkenny in the two top spots, a putative Leinster final between them would have decided league garlands too but the Tribesmen were beaten by Dublin.
While the 2009 All-Ireland SHC was finished, one game was left outstanding. Offaly and Clare beat Antrim and Wexford respectively in relegation semi-finals but, with the championship structure revised for 2010, there was no need to play the final.
Closer to home, this year marks the 20th anniversary of one league final being played the week before the semi-final of the previous year’s competition – which was never concluded.
Back then, the county leagues often ran into trouble when competing teams exited the championship and the 2002 edition was not even finished by the time 2003 ended. The 2003 version was finally boxed off when Blackrock beat Cloyne in Páirc Uí Chaoimh on St Brigid’s Day.
It set up a final meeting with St Finbarr’s but, for one reason or another, the match was never played – despite plenty of opportunities for the classic GAA ‘double up’ with another fixture.
Perhaps it could be an option for a fundraising opportunity? Bring the teams of two decades ago together to contest the Conroy Cup for 2002 and support a good cause.
Maybe they could even hold it as a double-header with the meeting of St Mirren and Coventry City.
App?
