Dónal Óg Cusack: Hurling needs more oxygen

RTÉ analyst Dónal Óg Cusack has said that while the ever-increasing standard of hurling is pumping oxygen into the lungs of the game, the condensed nature of the season is sucking it right back out.

Speaking on The Sunday Game after Limerick's historic three-in-a-row All-Ireland success after their final win over Kilkenny, the former Cork goalkeeper cut a dispirited figure as he listed a series of issues that he has with the split-season model.

"Looking back, you’ve seen all those great moments and I think today was again an example of how the envelope has been pushed in terms of this game," he said.

"It’s just getting better and better. The players are getting faster. stronger, the skills level...I couldn’t help thinking today that even the performance by Kilkenny, given how the game has advanced over the last number of years, that would have won a lot of the finals that Brian Cody won.

"That’s testament to that team as well and they pushed it on, and now Limerick have taken it on to another level.

"I think hurling, very often, is better to us than we are to hurling, You’re talking to the converted here, we're all hurling fanatics, every one of us.

"I just feel it was a rushed season and finishing the game now, such a distance between the major games, young people seeing all those top players on television, it’s too long."

Cusack pointed to Limerick’s Munster final win over Clare, a game decided in extra-time after Tony Kelly’s dramatic sideline cut had drawn the Banner level in the final seconds of normal time.

"That Munster final there, one of the greatest Munster finals if not the greatest Munster final of all time.

"Why weren’t we able to have a replay there? For the following week all talk would have been about hurling,