Not everyone in a New York state of mind as hurlers head for final in Croke Park
THE CHANCES ARE, it won’t even be close.
That’s not to disrespect the work that has gone into Cavan hurling and the seasons that Ollie Bellew has given to them.
But New York are, as Owen Mulligan once described then-teammate Darren McCurry after he made his senior debut for Tyrone – ‘Different McCurry.’
A New York win, in a national final, in Croke Park, could be seen as a fairytale for New York. But for those that are facing them and the Monaghan hurling community that faced them last weekend, the wind blows straight through them.
The whole thing has turned them cold.
While New York had a right to enter a competition to play in the All-Ireland hurling championships, the complaints centre around the feeling that they were always far too strong for the Lory Meagher Cup.
This was illustrated by the gulf in class between themselves and Monaghan in the semi-final last weekend in Mullingar, when the Exiles won 1-29 to 2-13.
Even before the game, Monaghan manager Arthur Hughes was scathing.
“It’s an absolute joke in my opinion,” he said.
“You don’t know what you’re coming up against, what level they’re at, and it’s completely unfair to just fly a team into the semi-finals. If you’re going to participate in a competition, you should be there from the start.”
This weekend’s opposition, Cavan, feel the same way. Their manager Ollie Bellew has been working hard with the Breffni hurlers for a number of years now and can hardly contain himself, telling Northern Sound radio station, “It’s disgusting how the GAA have handled the situation.”
“If there’s any integrity within the organisation, it’ll be investigated and they’ll look how to deal with things like that better going forward”.
“You know, it was a vote-getting thing” added Bellew.
“You know, promoting hurling in developing counties is always a token gesture.”
He continued, “But it was all compounded by the very fact that, New York are staying in Mullingar! Monaghan had deserved to be in a Lory Meagher final, and all of a sudden, they have to go to a Lory Meagher semi-final in a neutral venue, and that neutral venue was Mullingar”.
“So, like, that compounded everything for me”.
While the vote at GAA Congress in February was 76.8% in favour of New York’s inclusion, the fixture had already been published on the New York GAA website beforehand.
Kevin Moloney is a former Monaghan minor manager, now managing his own club, Castleblayney in Monaghan. He contacted The 42 to air his views.
“They were pitted against the likes of Johnny Glynn, lovely hurler and all that, he could have scored two more goals if he had have wanted. He tapped them over the bar. It became a farce in the end, they were just taking points. They were a bit half embarrassed by the end of it,” said Moloney.
“But who asked for them to get into it? Who asked for them to get into it at that level?
“Why were people from strong hurling counties asking for that when they hadn’t asked the opinion of those from weaker counties?”
Moloney warned that the precedent set at Congress could result in more GAA units wanting to take part in lower-level championships.
“The Middle East could bring a team and we have seen in the sevens that they have very strong teams. If they come in, they would win the Lory Meagher or the Nickey Rackard next year,” he reasoned.
“If they were really serious about it, why not bring the two teams, Cavan and Monaghan from this year, over to New York and play a game over there. Whoever wins that semi-final plays New York in the final. Would that not do more to promote hurling in those counties that it would anything else?
“Most of those fellas played with counties such as Cork and Galway, some from Westmeath. Great hurlers. They don’t deserve to be in with Monaghan.
“There’s platitudes towards it. Would they not be better to pay a good coach 50,000 a year to come up and spearhead hurling in Cavan and Monaghan?”
So the question is, just how good are New York?
As previously detailed on this site, they have 14 hurling clubs in total, far surpassing any county team they could have faced in the Lory Meagher. Maybe more than half the counties of Ireland, come to think of it.
The Hollywood name is obviously the Galway All-Ireland winner Johnny Glynn who has now become possibly the only man to represent New York in both codes in the modern age.
Then at wing-back, you have Seán O’Leary-Hayes. He was the Cork minor captain in 2017 for the All-Ireland final and made his championship debut for Cork seniors in 2020. He’s won a Cork senior championship medal for Midleton.
Chances are, he’s not going to be all that troubled about who he is marking this Saturday. This is a man who in the past has been handed the responsibility of sticking tight to Aaron Gillane in Croke Park.
Darragh Moran was a panellist on the All-Ireland winning Cork U20 team of 2020 and Dara Walsh of Eire Óg, Ennis, won a Fitzgibbon Cup with UCC in 2019.
A brief look through the home clubs of the players throws up very recognisable names such as Kinvara, Clooney-Quin, Gort, Kiladangan, Portroe, Doon and Athenry.
So yeah. They have more pedigree than Crufts.
By parachuting in this team at the semi-final stage, it feels for many as just another blatant example of disrespect.
At the start of 2024 there was a furore around the prospect of five counties; Leitrim, Fermanagh, Cavan, Longford and Louth losing out on playing national league hurling as proposed by the Central Competitions Control Committee.
Ultimately, the pushback against the move was so fierce, with hurling voices from the established counties lending their support, that the GAA did not proceed with such plans.
The establishment of the Hurling Development Committee and the appointment of former Tipperary hurler and Laois manager Willie Maher as national head of hurling – a role that was left vacant for years after former Kilkenny coach Martin Fogarty’s contract ran out – shows that there is a genuine appetite to improve participation levels and standards of hurling within the association.
However, certain realities need to be faced.
The Ulster Council of the GAA are currently recruiting a regional hurling development officer, with a salary advertised at £27,400 – £30,700.
Given the scope of the role and the planning required to truly have an effect in such a role, the salary is way out of kilter with the calibre of personnel that is required. This is the kind of dough that is a handy stop-gap while you get ready to go for a year’s backpacking, not that gets a mortgage on the go.
For a time, Moloney himself was on the county board as a hurling development officer, but left after a time, feeling that the role wasn’t much more than a box-ticking exercise.
In the meantime, he is frustrated by GAA officials and the inclusion of New York in the Lory Meagher.
“Croke Park have been very silent on it. Nobody has said it was a farce. Last Saturday in Mullingar was wrong and Michael Duignan needs asked what did last Saturday do to hurling in Monaghan?” he asked, referencing the former Offaly hurler and county board chairman who spoke in favour of New York entering at the GAA Congress in Donegal.
“I spoke to four Monaghan players on the panel after the game and they were very downbeat. It shouldn’t have been allowed to happen.
“But nobody speaks up for them. That’s the bottom line.”
If New York do win the Lory Meagher Cup, then no team will be relegated from the Nickey Rackard Cup this year. Fermanagh will remain at that level and it will increase next year from being a six-team competition to one of seven teams.
But should New York not win the Lory Meagher in 2026, then they will have to play a relegation play-off against the team that finished bottom after the group stages.
“For example, that is Fermanagh this year. And they have to wait around for three weeks to play a match? How would you keep a panel around for that?” asks Moloney.
“There’s a lot of joined-up thinking missing here. But nobody could explain to me what good that exercise did for hurling last Saturday.
“I have no problem with New York playing. No problem at all, as long as they are at the right level. And anyone that knows anything about hurling would have known what level these hurlers are at.
“They are not at Lory Meagher level. They should have been put in at Christy Ring level and they would have swam, and not sank.”
Sure. There would be many that feels even pointing out all that stuff is mean-spirited and begrudging.
But there you have it. Welcome to the real world.
****
Check out the latest episode of The42′s GAA Weekly podcast here
The 42
