HDC chair: Some counties sabotaging hurling at club level

Some counties are sabotaging the promotion of hurling in their scheduling of fixtures, according to the head of the Hurling Development Committee.

Chairperson Terry Reilly made the claim during the course of Wednesday's HDC media briefing, during which the GAA outlined its long-term ambition to expand the number of counties competing for Liam MacCarthy and announced that a new National Head of Hurling would soon be recruited.

Antrim native Reilly, a former hurler with the Gortnamona club in Belfast who was appointed HDC chairman by GAA President Jarlath Burns, said they intended to assist counties in rolling out hurling fixtures and hoped to see a change in attitudes among counties where football is dominant.

"We need to concentrate on the low fruit initially," Reilly told RTÉ Sport.

"You have people that are very willing to work with you, who are very willing to be the people on the ground, that if they get the right support, if they get us buying into what they see being deployed on the ground, and helping hurling locally, will row in behind it.

"In relation to the bigger picture, yes, there are challenges throughout. The problem that we have is that we have counties that are carrying out acts of sabotage by not facilitating hurling fixtures.

"How do we go about redressing that? We need to assure those counties that we're there to help, that we're there to assist, so we can get them the confidence to try to roll out as many hurling fixtures as they possibly can.

"They'll see the programmes that we intend to roll out and we would hope that they would have a change of heart in relation to how they've treated hurling before.

"I believe that an initiative like this, being driven from the top in Croke Park, will help. It's our job