TOUGH TO TAKE…Ruairi Convery has watched the slide of Derry hurling

However, the past 12 months has felt like an eternity in Derry hurling circles. Almost exactly a year on from a defeat in the Christy Ring final, the Derry senior hurling team will compete in the Nicky Rackard for 2017, and possibly beyond that.

It has been an extremely disappointing season for everyone involved in the setup, but what can be done to improve the game within Derry and indeed throughout the rest of Ulster?

Even before a ball had been struck in anger this year, Derry had been dealt a major blow with the retirements of Kevin and Liam Hinphey, as well as Ruairi McCloskey. Three life-long servants to the Derry hurling team as well as being three leaders on and off the pitch.

From the panel that took to the Croke Park field on the 6th June 2015, to the team that were beaten by Antrim in the Ulster Championship on the 19th June, Derry were down 15 players.

A county like Derry simply cannot function or compete when losing such a substantial amount of players in one season. Derry are not blessed with a massive pool of players when you consider there are only seven senior clubs, so to lose so many men for one reason or another, it was always going to be a difficult season.

When I first came into the county setup in 2003, Derry had just came off the back of winning back-to-back Ulster Championships and included some of the greatest hurlers to ever dawn the Oak Leaf jersey.

The likes of Olly Collins, Henry Downey and Geoffrey McGonigle were still on the panel when I arrived, albeit probably in their twilight years, but Derry were still playing in Division One of the National Hurling League.

These great servants all seemed to retire round about the same time and it was a rebuilding process with Derry for a few years. A lot of (us) young boys where brought into the panel and were thrown in at the deep end. We were relegated out of Division One and indeed relegated to Nicky Rackard after the 2005 season.

In 2006 there was a bit of regeneration within the county. We won the Nicky Rackard fairly comfortably and in turn where promoted back to Christy Ring where we remained until this year.

Next year could, and probably should, be a rebuilding process for Derry again. Introduce the younger players, give them game time, get used to playing inter-county hurling. Next year should be seen as a kind of apprenticeship for the new boys. Serve their time and work their way up the ladder, back to where I believe Derry hurling should be.

A big issue to tackle is a lack of interest in hurling for the county. I don’t believe this is solely a Derry issue. There are some fantastic hurlers within the county who do not commit for one reason or another.

Of course, nobody can ever be forced to play county hurling, or football, as the GAA are an amateur sporting body. However, I have felt privileged to wear the county jersey on each and every occasion I have been allowed to wear it. It should be seen as an honour for the player and his club to be afforded the opportunity to represent his county no matter what the code, no matter what the level.

Take into consideration the number of dual players within the county. There are at least seven men on the Derry football panel that would walk straight onto the county hurling panel. The minors have the same issue with so many players involved in both codes.

I have been a dual player all my life and have always tried to accommodate both and give 100% commitment to both. If a player of Keith Higgins’s stature can manage to participate in hurling and football at inter-county level, I believe a lot more men should be able to manage it, if they wish to do so.

The club scene in Derry also needs to be looked at. To date, my club Swatragh have played four senior hurling league games this year, each of them played on a week night.

We played Slaughtneil on the 4th April and have played three games since. It is hard to develop players when they are playing on average one game of competitive hurling per month. As a club player, where is the motivation to train 2/3 nights a week and not knowing when the next outing is going to be? I know that Steven Barker has tried to accommodate the hurling fraternity and he has put a lot of effort into fixtures, but club players simply need more games to improve.

Slaughtneil have proven over the last two seasons that they can compete with the best teams in Ulster. Their underage teams have been competing in Antrim leagues for the past number of years and that has greatly improved them.

This may be a way forward (to join Antrim leagues), but it brings with it its own headaches. Antrim league games clash with Derry football league games, so a collaborative approach between both county boards could ease the fixture congestion and avoid any clashes, thus increasing the amount of games players are getting and exposing players to better opposition.

Ulster hurling has taken a dip this year, and I am not exactly sure why. As a Hurling Officer myself, I see the work going on at grassroots level. There is a substantial amount of work being carried out in every county in Ulster.

We can compete at feile level but it seems to be after that, the gulf in class widens. Is it a lack of games? Is it a lack of interest? Is it the wrong type of coaching? Many questions need to be answered, and a lot of money put into developing hurling in the north.

Antrim will be disappointed with how their season ended. Derry are bitterly disappointed with their entire season. Down will be disappointed. Armagh will be disappointed not to have won the Nicky Rackard. A disappointing season for hurling Gaels in Ulster.

So what is the way forward? Allowing five ‘ringers’ to play for your team is not developing hurling in my opinion. It will benefit teams in the south, but it is hard to imagine any hurler in the north bearing allegiance to another county.

I firmly believe this rule should be scrapped. Investment of time and money is crucial to developing the game in the long term. A serious, tangible and workable development plan is required for clubs and counties in order to ensure they can work to get their best players playing hurling.

It has been a long 12 months personally playing in the red and white. It is just a pity my 13th year in a county jersey plummeted like the value of the pound after Brexit! But, there is always hope….
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