John Horgan: We're worried about Cork, but hurling has bigger issues

It's all over now and if we are to be very honest, the hurling season did not reach any spectacular heights.

The games that we will recall with any great fondness have been few and far between, the gulf between the Munster counties and their Leinster counterparts remains the same despite Galway's run to the All-Ireland final and their performance in eliminating Cork from the equation in the semi-final.

However, when the much bigger questions were posed by Limerick last Sunday they had no answers.

The main talking points from the season centre around failures more than anything else, Tipperary's awful attempt in their efforts to retain the crown that was won so gloriously 12 months earlier and not being even an entry in the list of those competing for the MacCarthy Cup once the provincial series had concluded.

That was the case too last season with Clare after their triumph in 2024.

But the biggest failure of all was the demise of Kilkenny and their failure to emerge from the Leinster championship.

Despite their fall off the radar in recent years in terms of All-Ireland victories, they were the reigning provincial champions and in 2024 and last season, had really put it up to the eventual winners, Clare and Tipperary, in the semi-finals. In 12 short months, their fall was a huge surprise and not occupying one of the top three spots in Leinster was a major talking point.

In the season now concluded the number of one-sided games was far too many, games that were done and dusted from a long way out.

When the competition entered the big house the expectation was that we'd get some cracking games, the semi-finals and final in particular. But that did not happen either, in the first semi Cork fell apart against Galway as they had done a year previous in the final against Tipperary.

What transpired against the Premier will forever remain one of the great mysteries, a team leading by six points at the interval and subsequently being crushed to pieces. And then what happens a year later, a similar tale of woe against Galway after again being in front after 35 minutes.

Unappealing

At provincial level, this time we had some very poor games, two hammerings dished out to Clare by Limerick and Cork and Limerick trouncing Tipperary by 17 points.

In the Leinster championship group stage, Galway battered Kilkenny by 15 points, the Cats hammered Wexford by 17 points, Kilkenny defeated newcomers Kildare by 23 points and Offaly doing the same to them.

Offaly subsequently were devoured by Cork in the quarter-final adding to the list of very lopsided outcomes. You are always going to get some results that has supporters heading for the exits very early but this season there were too many.

Walking down Jones' Road, the Gaelic grounds or Thurles while the proceedings inside those stadiums still have 15 or 20 minutes remaining is a very poor look.

A cracking, epic final would have compensated for a lot but that too became a very significant entrant to the list of those aforementioned games.

Limerick and Clare's All-Ireland semi-final was, by far, the most gripping encounter of the season, a game that had pretty much everything.

The Munster final in SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh held our attention right to the death but overall the games of hurling could not be bracketed in the list of epics.

On The Sunday Game the state of hurling was discussed by the pundits present and while some interesting observations were made, is much going to change?

Yes, progress, great progress is being made in counties like Offaly and Kildare, Laois too but realistically are any of those counties right now going to challenge the ones that prevail from season to season.

Yes, there are not nearly enough counties competing at elite level in hurling but hasn't that always been the case.

Offaly's big breakthrough in the '80s and '90s was a godsend and their re-emergence again is a huge plus and the county board in the Faithful county have to be commended for their input, particularly former great, Michael Duignan during his time in the chair.

Of course, the GAA needs to have a long, hard look at itself and how things are with the game of hurling at a national level.

But it's difficult to see that much of a change, here on Leeside the failure to impact at schools level, the Harty Cup, in particular, is a big concern and that's where it should all begin, trying to grow the game a lot more in the schools.

There has been a Hurling Review going on under the chair of John Meyler and there's no better person than the former star player and manager to have at the helm.

A hurling man through and through, one has no doubt there will be a positive outcome to their deliberations and their findings will be very interesting.

But for now, the inter-county hurling show is over, over for nearly six months and that's one thing that surely needs to be examined. The perceived greatest field game in the world having no stage to perform on for that length of time.

The general consensus has been that the split season has been a great success and maybe it has but we need youngsters looking at the elite players in action for a lot longer in the year.

The final task of The Sunday Game pundits was to select their team of the year which they did and it was difficult to argue with their findings.

Again, as we stated in a previous column, it all boiled down to the semi-finals and the final, the winners always going home with the bulk of the All-Star mementoes.

And the manner with which Limerick performed in the final, their selections would be close to going into double figures.

Nicky Quaid was again selected with the number one jersey but Galway's Darach Fahy had to be very much in the conversation too for his performances during their run to the final. As we predicted, Brian Hayes was going to be the only Cork player to be in the running and, quite rightly, he was the choice on Sunday night.

Will the All-Stars selectors be as generous to Limerick as The Sunday Game personnel were, maybe, maybe not, but for it's hard to argue against the 10 selected.

Galway's performance in the final made it easier for some to be selected but those Limerick players richly deserve all the honours. Changed times indeed, just the one selection from the perceived big three counties of Kilkenny, Tipp and Cork.

Any one of six or seven players from Limerick could be chosen as Hurler of the year and Gearóid Hegarty's selection would brook little argument although Kyle Hayes, Diarmaid Byrnes and Will O'Donoghue must have featured in the process too.