Old rivals square off as new league comes on stream

Maybe a dose of controversy was just what the Allianz Hurling League needed this week.

The hurling league has struggled for relevance in recent years against its more self-important football counterpart.

This trend has been exacerbated this year by all the intrigue surrounding Gaelic football's grand rules experiment, which has hogged so much airtime that pundits barely have the scope to explore more mundane matters like 'who'll win this one, Whelo?'

The initial TV snub of Cork-Limerick was just what was required to get hurling people going. The surprise was that it hit so early in the year.

Our colleagues at Liveline usually have this controversy provisionally marked in their calendar for early April. When GAAGO is broadcasting exclusive coverage of Cork and Tipperary drawing 6-22 apiece in Páirc Uí Chaoimh, while those relying on terrestrial are watching Monaghan beat Fermanagh 1-10 to 0-08 in the Ulster preliminary round.

(Editor's note: The fact that only two Munster round-robin games are fixed for GAAGO's traditional Saturday slot may upset the plans of Joe Duffy and co. in 2025.)

The threatened blackout of one of hurling's hottest fixtures right now became quite the furore. The brew was strengthened by the unwitting involvement of a certain rival sport. Cork's insistence that they didn't want to force their supporters to choose between a home game against Limerick and the Ireland-England rugby international provoked some derision among the more diehard hurling elements.

In the end, a solution was arrived at. TG4 are streaming the game online, while broadcasting Donegal-Dublin on the main channel.

All's well that ended well, except for those demographics who are still far out of their comfort zone when operating the Google