Downward momentum after hurling relegations is hard to reverse 

Last week, we examined the varying fortunes of sides in the Cork county football championships in the year immediately after a relegation.

While the senior A victories of Newcestown in 2023 and Carrigaline last year were the perfect riposte to dropping from premier senior the season before, those two stood alone among 13 demoted sides since the change in championship format for 2020.

Rather than getting a bounce-back at a lower grade, there were more instances – four in total – of teams suffering a second successive relegation than managing to turn the ship around.

How does hurling compare, or contrast, in the five seasons since the system was altered to the new streamlined mode? There is slightly more data to work with, as the fifth tier (initially called Lower IHC, now Premier JHC) has existed for longer than in the big-ball code, though the results are not dissimilar.

Prior to Glen Rovers’ victory in the Co-op SuperStores SAHC last year, no relegated side had managed to effect a return at the first time of asking; indeed, nobody has even managed to reach a final and prior to last year, nobody had reached a semi-final.

The Glen were the four club to move down from premier senior to senior A and, while none of the previous three – Ballyhea, Carrigtwohill, Na Piarsaigh – had to contest the relegation play-off to avoid dropping to premier intermediate, neither had any of them reached the knockout stages at the second level in their first year down.

The premier intermediate championship has been somewhat more hospitable for the sides having to re-grade after demotion; at the same time, Mallow’s run to the semi-finals last year only came after they had lost their first two group games as they struggled to re-adjust after relegation.

Kilworth in 2021 had managed to top their group but couldn’t claim an automatic semi-final spot and were beaten in the quarter-finals, while Bandon and Ballymartle also failed to break through that glass ceiling and make the last four.

Unfortunately for Bandon, another relegation was to follow for them in 2023, their second year down, and they finished bottom of their intermediate A group last year but did at least avoid having to negotiate another relegation play-off.

Their experience in the fourth tier was similar to the sides coming before them. In 2020, Blackrock were relegated from the premier intermediate grade - in 2021, they ended up in the relegation play-off at IAHC level but survived, beating Glen Rovers.

Aghada in 2022, like Bandon two years later, finished bottom of their group but were saved having to contest the relegation play-off; in 2023, Youghal couldn’t avoid that ‘final’ that nobody wants to be in but they did at least retain intermediate status by beating Douglas.

Unfortunately for Douglas, that defeat precipitated a tough year at premier junior level – three defeats meant they faced another relegation play-off and a one-point loss to Argideen Rangers sent them down to junior A ranks.

Argideen themselves were relegated from intermediate A in 2020 and they responded well in what was then known as the lower intermediate championship, reaching the quarter-finals. Meelin 2023 had a similar campaign, while in between Glen Rovers had a third-placed finish in the year after their relegation – no knockout qualification but, just as importantly, no further relegation. Douglas’s loss last year made them the first team to have consecutive relegations.

Overall, the picture is a shade more positive than negative – one championship winner, one semi-final appearance, five quarter-finalists, three sides finishing third, three finishing bottom of their group but avoiding the relegation play-off, two play-off winners and one relegated for the second year in a row.

However, it’s clear that the trend points towards the downward momentum being hard to fully turn around in just a year.