I'm not going to get into the speculation aspect of what was said to players by Durrow management, by Ballinamere management, and how much of it came from players themselves. Only those involved know that.
That article by Kevin Corrigan, while fair and reasonable and based on sources within the clubs, does stray into editorialising when it gets to here:
Walkovers just should not be conceded in senior football and hurling, no matter what the stakes are
I'm not as hardline on this matter, for the simple reason that there are times when fielding a team is simply not in a club's interest, and it is unreasonable to expect any club to act against their own interests.
To illustrate what I mean, I go back to something a fellow Ferbane man and a poster on this board said to me the best part of 20 years ago. I don't remember word for word what it was, but it was something along the lines of "you don't have to play every championship as knockout, but losing a game should hurt your chances of winning - a lot".
The problem is when you get into situations where losing a game doesn't make any difference whatsoever.
Now like all things, there is no black and white and there is no right and wrong. Straight knockout championships are great for supporters, but they're not a great deal for players, when by definition, 50% of the players in any given championship will lose their first match and therefore they will be out straight away. The flip side of the coin is that when you put in place round robin systems, particularly that farcical system that was in place last year, you get lots of games, but they don't matter. So every CCC/County board is trying to strike a balance.
I agree that in the interests of giving players a meaningful championship, some element of round robin is worthwhile. Losing one game should not be fatal, and someone qualifying for knockout football/hurling on the back of losing two matches doesn't upset me either. But we have to accept that there is a trade-off, and the trade-off there is that you will occasionally have matches where the result doesn't matter to one or both teams.
Now I agree with Kevin Corrigan that giving walkovers is undesirable, and clubs should try to field teams. However sometimes you cross the line into territory where a club fielding a team is maybe good for competition integrity, but it hurts that club. This is one obvious example, where if Durrow were to field a team, their options were to field a load of senior hurlers and thus damage Ballinamere's chances of beating KK, potentially fatally so if Daniel Bourke, Ciarán Burke, Brian Duignan or someone like that picked up an injury. Or, they had option two, pull up a whole load of junior footballers to make up the numbers, which would be doubly harmful as it would both expose those players to taking on Rhode seniors where they would be blown out of the water in a needlessly humiliating experience, and it would also mean that a huge amount of players from their second team would now be graded senior. So assuming they've used around 20 lads so far, that might mean they finish the year with 27 or 28 players graded senior, of which only six (I think) could be regraded back down for 2026. So one or two guys, by togging out, would then be unable to play junior football next year as there wouldn't be enough regrades to go around.
I think we can all agree that either of these scenarios are bad for the Durrow club, whereas a walkover does them no meaningful harm at all.
There are other scenarios. I remember Tullamore giving a walkover in the first round of a group game, maybe their senior or maybe their intermediates, can't recall which, because they had a glut of injury and J1 related absences, most of which would be back for R2. They had little or no chance of winning without these players, and calling up a load of guys from the level below that would cripple their ability to field a third team, and would mean that all those players called up would be done for the year, and for what?
Going further back, I remember a scenario from a long time back before where in the SFC, you had a final round game between a club that had topped the group already with a game to spare, taking on a side that was fighting to avoid relegation, and this was a club that at the time was noted for their tendency to bring a tent, look at the line between hard physical football and dirty, dangerous play, cross that line and set up camp on the far side of it. I remember thinking at the time that if I was the manager of that senior club that was already qualified, the risk of injury and suspension from playing in this game was incredibly high, to the point that I genuinely would have considered conceding a walkover.
Then you have games that are just "what's the point" all round? Tullamore vs Clonbullogue this week is the obvious example. Clonbullogue I'm sure would just like to be done for the year, and Tullamore would be much better served getting a good challenge game down against another elite team than taking on a side that will go through the motions.
The culture of not giving walkovers is firmly engrained and that's why it happens so rarely, but I do think on the general point, we should accept that it's a price to pay for having round robin systems, and that when things fall in such a way that clubs would be acting against their best interests by fielding a team, castigating them for not doing so is unreasonable.
Kevin Egan. Signed out of respect for players and all involved with Offaly.
