THE phoney war is at an end for county hurling and football managers after this weekend when April, the month designated for club action, passes us by. They can come out of the shadows again.

For some it is at an end already and places like Carton House and even sunnier climes will be busy for the next few weekends hosting county squads as they step up their preparations. I had reason to ring a current inter-county manager on Monday evening and I got the tell tale foreign dial tone!

We’re literally three weeks away from the real stuff and it can’t come quickly enough.

In a few days the tickets go on sale for the new group stages in the hurling and that will concentrate minds. In Munster there is serious value to be had. For €20 you’ll get a seat, for €15 you can stand. When you consider that the Munster Minor Hurling championship (now an U-17 competition), is being run along the same format as curtain raisers to the senior games, there is serious entertainment in store.

Eventually people will start referring to these games as the pool stages of the competition!

For games like Wexford and Kilkenny in Nowlan Park, and Wexford and Galway in Innovate Wexford Park you’d want to be on the ball ticketwise, ditto for Clare and Limerick in Cusack Park. Those three games are perfect examples of why this new look championship will work.

There hasn’t been a sell-out Munster championship match for a number of years now, including finals, but that should change in May and June. Tipp and Limerick in three weeks time might bring 40,000 to the Gaelic Grounds.

This is what we want. This is what the hurling championship needs.

Change often comes slowly to the GAA but now and again we fall on the right formula. It would be heartening if this group concept worked.

TICKET SALES

What is working already is the move to online ticket sales. According to the Munster Council, up to 60% of tickets for championship matches last year were sold via the internet. Only 13% went through county boards. That too is progress.

It also gets the tickets into the hands of spectators seamlessly. We have been printing our boarding passes for years, we should be doing the same for hurling and football matches.

This method should make it much easier for the GAA to track supporters who go to all the games, and a bit like the current season ticket, online sales should help us identify a fair way of getting All-Ireland tickets into the hands of the die-hards and not the day trippers who only show up for finals.

They are out there. I know plenty of them.

In Clare last July we had a remarkable situation at the Munster hurling final where Cork supporters outnumbered us by about seven or eight to one.

The Clare support on the day was appalling. I’d love a system in place that saw every one of those loyal Clare supporters rewarded and guaranteed the opportunity to buy a ticket if we were to make an All-Ireland final this August.

Every county has that core group of followers, and some of them inevitably get left short on the big day. Maybe with the move to online ticket sales and the rich potential for data and dare I say it, customer profiling, the GAA can be proactive and build loyalty into ticket sales during the year. I’d propose something like the old air miles system, with everyone who buys a ticket early in the year gaining points towards the right to buy All-Ireland tickets.

The purist in me would like to see the crowds back and like it or not incentives are needed to produce them. While any right-thinking person would consider €20 great value for a Munster or Leinster hurling championship match, we probably need to look at the pricing too.

Prices for concerts, rugby and soccer matches are exorbitant when compared to the GAA but far too many games that saw 30,000 a decade ago, now pull less than 20,000. Hopefully, with the advent of the extra home games, we’ll see a rise in attendances over the next few weeks.

There’s a stretch in the evenings and by next Monday you can go online and book your championship tickets. It will soon be time to think about sandwiches and who’s travelling with you in the car, and if you’re going to Thurles, which one of the 11 potential routes to take.

What wonderful problems to have!

Spreading the rugby riches

THERE has been a lot of talk since the weekend about Leinster’s rugby riches and the apparent scarcity in our other provinces, with Ulster prominently mentioned as a location for a couple of current Leinster and Irish stars, in order to get them more playing time.

I’ve always believed that the wealth should be shared out among the provinces but the how is a little more complex. Leinster are about to be penalised for their excellent academy and their ability to churn out home grown talent like Ross Byrne and Joey Carberry. That’s harsh on the great work being done by the province.

These two players are being mentioned in dispatches as transfer targets for Ulster, with the IRFU and Joe Schmidt keen for them to get European game time ahead of a World Cup. With Johnny Sexton and Rob Kearney in such good form and health, Byrne and Carberry have roadblocks in front of them. There are no such obstacles at Ravenhill.

Ulster is a team in turmoil right now and their playing pool is sorely in need of a makeover. They also need a coach. Having a wonderful stadium and a decent support base does not make a European contender, Ulster have found this out in recent years. They’re already getting Jordi Murphy from Dublin – no doubt Leo Cullen thinks that’s enough.

One can only wonder why Munster aren’t being talked about for either Byrne or Carberry. Or maybe they are behind the scenes, we can only hope. Simon Zebo needs to be replaced and Carberry would be the ideal candidate.

We’d only need him for a year or two. When Johnny Sexton hangs up his boots they can have him back!