​By John Harrington

Michael Duignan’s exasperation with some of the modern-day tactics in hurling has been obvious during his recent RTE co-commentaries.

That was especially so when he called the contest between Waterford and Clare in the recent Munster SHC Semi-Final.

Packed defences, sweeper systems, and laboured build-up play are clearly anathema to a man who played on the swashbuckling Offaly team of the 1990s. What annoys him most about the tactical strategies that the Waterford and Clare managements employ is that he believes they’d actually be better teams if they trusted more in the natural attacking flair and skill of their players.

“The thing I don't like that's emerging is that if you're critical of it you're accused of being old-fashioned and not understanding the game,” says Duignan. “With all due respects, I'm around the game all my life, I think I understand it. 

“I just think with sweepers, how do you expect at the end of the day to win? I understand why Waterford did it for a while because they'd been hammered below in Cork a few years ago in the Munster Final and Derek McGrath came in and he's very bright and he said, 'look, we have to stop getting hammered, we have to build from here'. 

“But I think they will move on from it. They have a lot of very good players that can really hurl and can hurl their man on their own. I think they'll evolve. 

“It's just something coming into the game that to me doesn't make any sense because it's a very spontaneous game. At the end of the day only one team can win the game anyway, so you might as well lose playing the game as losing by tipping the ball around in your full-back line. That's the way I look at it anyway.

“If these lads weren't able to hurl you'd say something, we're playing this way because we don't have the players, but these are incredible players. When you see Conor McGrath being taken off with 15 or 20 minutes to go, one of the best forwards I've seen…Tony Kelly taking puck-outs from his goalie and they four points down against Waterford. That doesn't make any sense to me.”

Duignan fears that if managers continue to make it their priority to stifle the opposition rather than focus on attack then many of the game’s most gifted attacking players will be reluctant to make the commitment required to play county hurling.

“It's just a control thing from management teams over great players,” he says. “They're not allowed think for themselves now on the field or do anything off the field. Where are we going with the game? And how are we allowing it to happen? 

“I would argue that there are better players now than there ever have been individually in terms of skill if you go through all the counties, and they're so young some of them, that there has to be a responsibility on us to let them go out and become the players they can be. 

“Can you imagine being a good forward now and being surrounded by three or four players. Like Seamie Callanan last year against Waterford hardly got a ball. If that went on for long enough, would players have an interest in playing? I wouldn't anyway, if you're getting criticised and ridiculed and taken off.

“All the back has to do...if you watch games now they're not even going for the ball. They're just shadowing the forward and they don't have to worry about where the ball breaks because someone else is there to pick it up. 

“Waterford scored 1-20 the last day against Clare which is a good enough score if a team isn't scoring goals against you. But I don't think 1-20 will beat Kilkenny. They'll find a way of scoring more than that. Or will you even score that 1-20 against them? I just hope they let the shackles off a little bit.”

Duignan is also worried that only an elite few counties with the ability to spend huge sums of money on their county teams will be able to compete for national honours in the coming years.

“I don't think there's anything wrong with the game of hurling per se, the skill level and the players that are there, but I do think the management teams are out of control,” he says.

“There's too much money being spent on all that end of things. Who can afford it is going to get stronger and who can't is going to get weaker. Because players compare notes and they're saying, 'we don't have this, we don't have that, we won't bother going in now because we've no chance.'

“That's wrong. If the only teams that can win in the GAA are the teams with the most money, which is nearly the way it is now, well it's a sad day for that the GAA is about in my opinion.”

Duignan’s native Offaly are one of the most notable teams to have seen their status in the game diminish in recent years. They have smaller financial resources than most, but he believes they can still do better if there is more leadership shown by the County Board and a greater investment at schools level.

“In fairness, in all the criticism of Offaly, there is a lot being done right,” he says. “Not everything is being done right. I think we’re lacking a bit of leadership at the top and we’re lacking ambition. But there’s a lot of people putting in a lot of work at club level. We have to improve at underage level. The Westmeaths and the Carlows and the Laois’ have been beating us at underage level.

“To me, it’s that area between 14 and 17 where our players aren’t developing. It’s not so much that they’re falling away. It’s that they’re staying playing at a level. And I think our secondary school system is where we’re falling down. The physical and hurling maturity that you should develop at that age is not happening in Offaly.

“Certain clubs are trying to do it. But you see in a lot of successful counties that it’s teachers that are over them. It’s teachers that are involved in development squads and at underage. In Offaly, we have a lot of guys teaching around the country. I wouldn’t make any apologies for saying they should be teaching in Offaly. And we should be looking through the boards of management to employ these people and give them jobs.

“A lot of lip service is being paid to it. Schools have open days and they say they offer all sports but they don’t really. I have a lad doing the Leaving and I’d say he’s had the hurl in school with him 10 times in six years. And it’s the clubs then that are trying to pick up all that slack. You have dual issues and all sorts of other sports. I think we have to get all those things spot on. Because we don’t have the population. And it’s things like that that aren’t rocket science that depress me. I’ve been saying that for a long time.

“Who has gone and met the schools? Who has said ‘can we do coaching?’ They’re our national games. Schools say they’re offering soccer and basketball. And all due respect to those sports – they’re not big in Offaly. They’re not part of our history and heritage. I would argue we should be doing more.”

Duignan believes an influx of new people and fresh ideas is necessary at county board level, and is worried that if the Offaly doesn’t get its act together soon they will struggle to ever make up the ground they’ve lost on their competitors.

“I think a lot of counties are the same and they're going through the motions. The top tier counties like Dublin, Kilkenny, Kerry and Tyrone would be be very professionally run but outside of that a lot of counties have the very same issues,” he says.

“If you brought in the chairman and secretary from the 40 clubs in Offaly, out of those 80 people you'd surely find 20 or 30 that have something to offer, bring fresh ideas and put them to work out there, it could re-ignite the thing. Supporters were coming to Croke Park every week during the 80s and 90s and that's what the supporters crave. It's 18 years since we won an All-Ireland senior hurling, unless you were 10 or 12 you wouldn't remember that.

“It's not just a lost generation, it's a couple of generations. We have to get our act together. It's a bit depressing for someone who was involved then but at the same time there's an ambition there to try and get back. This is our last chance saloon because if we slip any further we're in big, big trouble. I don't think we can get back out of it. This conversation is going on 10 or 12 years now, it's going on since 2002/2003 and it's a getting a little bit repetitive, it's time for action.”

*All-Ireland winning star Michael was at GAA Headquarters for the launch of this year’s Bord Gáis Energy Legends Tour Series. He is one of an array of GAA greats who will host tours of Croke Park as part of the 2016 Legends Tour series, an event that offers GAA fans a unique chance to experience the stadium from a player’s perspective. For more information about this summers’ GAA Legend tours, log on to www.bgeu21.ie