Puck-out, attack, shot... Does hurling have a problem?

Aron Shanagher celebrates scoring one of the weekend's seven goals

While football looks at itself in the mirror every morning and hates what it sees, hurling just smiles, give itself a wink and strides off to greet the day knowing everything is just perfect.

Nothing is right with the big ball game and everything needs to change, from rules to formats to styles of play.

The levels of negativity around football are alarming, if not surprising, with the popular narrative holding that the sport is lurching from one crisis to the next and just one more hand pass away from oblivion.

By contrast nothing in hurling’s world has ever been better. It’s the greatest game on earth and sure why would anyone bother with anything else?

The truth, of course, is somewhere in between.

Hurling is moving towards basketball, a sport where every possession is expected to end in a shot

Football isn’t always pretty to watch, but neither was it if you happened to be in the crowd for any random provincial quarter-final in the seventies or eighties before the television cameras arrived at such fixtures.

This has been a vintage year for hurling and the weekend just gone brought us two of the most remarkable games ever witnessed, compelling to the last, thrilling beyond belief and unrelenting in their drama.

The skill levels of these young men are higher than any previous generation of hurlers and their bravery and dedication could never be questioned.

But...

Hurling is not a game without its problems and issues. Hurling is not perfect, even if its fans seem to have trouble recognising this.

The application of rules by match officials seems haphazard at best with a series of small indiscretions allowed to add up before the whistle is finally blown.

The argument that there’s no cynicism in hurling and thus no need for a black card were well blown out of the water at the end of the Limerick-Cork semi-final on Sunday with Limerick leading by seven points in the dying minutes and knowing that not conceding a goal would see them through.

Cue the premeditated fouling far away from their goals to ensure the Rebels couldn’t work a clear chance, though this didn’t stop a late, long free from Patrick Horgan floating to the net.

Perhaps the biggest problem in all of this is one of the features that made for such edge-of-the-seat action –the relentless scoring.

Both semi-finals, both rightly lauded as classics of the genre, Clare-Galway on Saturday and Sunday’s Limerick-Cork, went to extra-time, so, stoppage time included, there was just under 200 minutes hurling played between the two games.

And in that time there were 203 puck-outs; 130 after scores and 73 from wides and that’s not counting any efforts that may have dropped short and were cleared. Incidentally, the 60 points and 62 scores on Saturday were records broken on Sunday by 63 points and 68 scores.

A puck-out, long, short or mid-length, is now the first ball in launching an attack and nearly every attack ends in a shot at the target. Hurling is moving towards basketball, a sport where every possession is expected to end in a shot at the hoop, with a large proportion of them converted.

The game of hurling is getting quicker, the players are bigger, fitter, faster, stronger and more skilful than ever before. Hurleys are lighter, sliotars travel further and pitches are better.

If the current trend, which has lasted for almost a decade, continues, scoring totals will continue to climb ever higher – and counterintuitive as this may sound, this is not a good thing.

Puck-out, attack, shot, puck-out, attack, shot. It’s not what such a great game should be reduced to.