Earlier this week, in an interview with The Examiner, Cork County Chairman was clear about how the new National Hurling League proposals came into being and who to credit when he said;
“It’s not a surprise to hear about it because the main hurling counties would have had meetings over the past while on this subject and this proposal is, we feel, the best solution. It gives the top teams seven games each and those games will help them ahead of the championship. What I would like to put on record is how grateful we are to the uachtaráin, Liam O’Neill, and Páraic Duffy, the ard-stiúrthóir. They have taken our suggestions on board. [our emphasis] They have brought it to Central Council now and hopefully they will vote it through.”
However in today’s Examiner Cork’s Chairman Bob Ryan is backtracking placing the credit at the door of the Croke Park committee the Central Competitions Control Committee (CCCC), Ryan said:
“Cork made no proposal to anybody with regard to the leagues. This was something that was put forward by the Central Competitions Control Committee, it was not something that was driven by Cork at all. We welcome this, obviously, but it’s not something that we pushed.”
We’ll let supporters use their own wisdom to come to a conclusion, but it certainly adds to the sense of a cynical conspiracy to implement these fundamentally undemocratic , damaging and misguided changes to the National League. As Wexford Senior Hurling manager Liam Dunne said, after the greatest seasons hurling in 25 years are we now to shoot ourselves in the foot by nodding through these changes?
See the piece in today’s Examiner newspaper:
http://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/gaa/hurling/cork-league-rethink-not-our-idea-245347.html