THE draws for the 2018 championships were made last week and when the dates for the fixtures followed we quickly saw that the hurling championship will be very squeezed.

In fact the haste at which the championship was redrawn already looks like it will come back to bite the GAA. Condensing the season is well and good, let’s hope the club championships are reinvigorated by the real opportunity to play games in August and September, but shouldn’t we have dropped something from the schedules?

The national hurling leagues are scheduled to start the last weekend in January and this will definitely see the competition heavily diluted.

In the middle of the league will come the Fitzgibbon Cup, a competition growing in importance and one inter-county players on scholarships can hardly ignore.

The traditional, and admittedly inconsequential, Munster League and Walsh Cup will nearly have to start before Christmas!

All that matters of course is championship. What will probably happen now is that the league will lose most of its lustre, now that four championship encounters come in rat a tat fashion starting in mid-May.

Over the past couple of years we’ve been treated to some wonderful league campaigns, as the coveted Division 1A status was fought out tooth and nail. Those games mattered. Relegation and promotion were seen as key objectives.

The crowds were flocking to the games and they were getting their money’s worth too.

Considering that the group stages of the league are scheduled to finish on 4 March, a full three weeks earlier than last year, we will not see anything like the intensity of previous years.

The most successful teams in the hurling championship next year will be the ones with the biggest squads, the ones capable of withstanding what will be a hectic first five months of the year.

As things stand right now, there will be games of varying consequence played in January, February, March and of course May. I will eat my hat if there is club championship played in a serious hurling county in April, the month supposedly designed as one for the clubs.

Right now county managers are designing programmes to have their players peak in early May. There will be precious little room, if any, for players to train with clubs in that window. Those that have bemoaned the physical demands of inter-county hurling in recent years will have plenty of ammunition in the coming months as county teams start earlier than ever before.

They have little choice because this time there are four matches, in some cases in as short as four weekends. Previously those teams out in late May or early June had three weeks after that first match to draw breath. Not any more.

Unworkable

As someone who is in favour of more championship matches, I am still wary of being careful what you wish for. The hurling schedule for 2018 as it has been presented is unworkable. The meat of the season will now be condensed into five weekends from 20 May to 17 June. At that stage four counties from Cork, Waterford, Tipperary, Clare, Limerick, Kilkenny, Dublin, Wexford, Galway and Offaly will be out of the championship.

Think about it, Waterford’s hurlers didn’t enter the championship until 18 June this year!

The concept of playing four guaranteed hot-blooded championship matches is a solid one, much better probably than the qualifier systems that has half served us for fifteen years. But the speed at which this has been put together, coupled with the speed at which the four games will be played, does not serve hurling well.

History suggests that we will see corrective surgery, most likely after the helter-skelter that will happen next May and June.

After all, the qualifiers were first introduced in 1997 and then it only allowed defeated provincial champions back into the mix. It wasn’t until 2002 that the backdoor was extended to all rounds of the championship.

There followed qualifier groups and a few years when three games could be lost but an All-Ireland still won.

Ironically we have football to thank for where hurling will find itself next summer. It was the decision to implement the ‘Super 8’ in football that finally prompted the hurling powers that be to act.

They will have to act again once the carnage of next May and June is revealed.

World cup fever

While on the field matters took up our attention these past few weeks, for rugby fans and indeed the entire country, it is off the field matters that will consume us in the coming weeks.

Next Tuesday sees the Rugby World Cup Board make their recommendation as to who they feel is best suited to host the 2023 Rugby World Cup. It is expected they will announce Ireland as their chosen host country, but don’t pop the champagne corks just yet because there is still a vote among rugby playing nations to take place on 15 November in London.

That vote ultimately decides where the 2023 tournament will take place and while we still appear to be in the driving seat, no chickens can be counted.

As we approach the final days, Ireland and France appear to be the two fighting it out to be hosts. There are 39 votes up for grabs with 20 needed to secure victory.

We look to have secured around 17 of those vital votes, hopefully more. If South Africa bow out after the first stage of voting as expected, then Australia switching their three votes from the doomed Springbok bid to us puts Ireland 2023 over the top.

It sounds simple, but nothing is certain when voting is involved. The bookies still have us as odds on favourites but the French have shortened somewhat in recent weeks.

This is the most important couple of weeks in Irish rugby history, if not the sporting history of this country. Hosting the event would be that big. Good luck to all involved in an effort that is now over four years old.