Continuing the experiment: hurling’s 2023 draft
Gavin Lee of Galway is tackled by Eoin Downey of Cork during the Allianz Hurling League Division 1A match between Galway and Cork at Pearse Stadium in Galway. Picture: Ben McShane/Sportsfile
If the first two years of this theoretical hurling draft were stress-testing the idea, then 2023 is where it starts to bend.
Carrying on from the 2021 and 2022 seasons, this third iteration still works within the same imagined framework – a professional GAA, an NFL style draft, and the U20 Hurling Championship acting as the primary production line.
This is the final season where the existing pecking order could plausibly be used to determine draft position. Because once you reach the point where a Cavan side containing Cathal O’Neill, Billy Drennan and Adam Screeney is still being treated as the second-worst team in the country, the model starts to creak.
That is where Cavan ultimately landed in the real world 2024 rankings, but no draft system would ever tolerate that imbalance for long.
Still, within the confines of the exercise, we press on.
Unsurprisingly, the 2023 draft pool is dominated by Cork and Offaly players, the counties who contested that year’s All-Ireland U20 final.
For Offaly in particular, this is the early phase of what would become a golden generation – the spine of the side that would finally get over the line against Tipperary a year later. Not all of them make it in this cycle. Some would have to wait. But enough do to give this draft a bit of a distinct character.
But then you’ve got the opposite, stragglers. Players who slipped through the cracks in 2021 and 2022 but force their way in here.
Clare’s Ian McNamara is the most obvious example – passed over twice before finally being picked up at the last possible opportunity – while several more from that 2023 Munster final-reaching Clare U20 side also come into view.
As before, the draft order follows senior championship results. Worst pick first. Best pick last.
Adam Screeney (Offaly) –
Eoin Downey (Cork) –
Darragh Stakelum (Tipperary) –
William Buckley (Cork) –
Daithi Lohan (Clare) –
Charlie Mitchell (Offaly) –
Shane Kingston (Cork) –
Patrick Fitzgerald (Waterford) –
Cathal King (Offaly) –
Sean Kenneally (Tipperary) –
Brion Saunderson (Cork) –
Sam Bourke (Offaly) –
Paddy O’Donovan (Limerick) –
Ben O’Connor (Cork) –
Brecon Kavanagh (Offaly) –
Keith Smyth (Clare) –
Cian Byrne (Wexford) –
Micheál Mullins (Cork) –
Darragh O’Sullivan (Cork) –
Shane Rigney (Offaly) –
Ian McNamara (Clare) –
Oran Cahill (Clare) –
Mark Fitzgerald (Waterford) –
Joe Caesar (Tipperary) –
Gavin Lee (Galway) –
Conal Ó Ríain (Dublin) –
Oisin O’Donnell (Clare) –
Jack Leahy (Cork) –
Sean Rynne (Clare) –
Timmy Wilk (Cork) –
Diarmuid Ó Dúlaing (Dublin) –
Colin Spain (Offaly) –
At first glance, Adam Screeney going number one ahead of Eoin Downey looks like a reach. And, it probably is. Downey is the safer bet and the more universally useful player.
The one most teams would take if given a clean slate. But drafts are never clean slates.
Leitrim holding the first pick, have already acquired Adam English and Joe Fitzpatrick in the previous two drafts, Screeney gives them something they don’t already have, and offers a pacey and skilful forward.
For Longford, sitting second, Downey suddenly makes perfect sense. With Shane O’Brien and Shane Barrett already on the books, what they need is a defender capable of anchoring a unit rather than another scoring option. Downey gives them exactly that.
Cavan, drafting third, are then pushed towards Darragh Stakelum. With O’Neill running the defence at six and Drennan leading the line, Stakelum is the connective tissue between the two.
As in the previous two seasons, some of the best value lies further down the board. Clare, Kilkenny and Limerick all emerge with players who, in pure talent terms, eclipse many taken earlier.
That is the lottery at the heart of it.
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