John Keneddy,the Kerryman who has enjoyed success with Kilmurray Ibrickane believes the secret to improving the status of the Inter provincial championship is to cement a date and venue for the competiton.
Speaking to Martin Donnelly,the long term sponser of the competiton it is clear how much gra he has for the battle of provinces that used to bring thoussands to venue across the country in the past.
Players that are involved are hugely enamoured of the competiton and the fact that Clare have three representatives in each squad and how honoured they feel to be involved is a testament to what it means for players to represent their province.
Then why do the Gaa not rate it?
The provincial councils have done very little to promote it and Christy Cooney has dismissed it over the last number of years-it wasn’t even on the fixture calendar in the last two seasons.
To sacrifice two weeks of the playing year to the competition seems totally alien to the gaa chiefs and clearly they see no commercial or playing reasons for keeping the competiton alive.
The best players in Ireland in football and hurling playing against each other should be a "no brainer" for the gaa-the same idea in other sports draws huge crowds in basketball and rugby so to dismiss the competiton off hand and drip feed it support is nothing short of a disgrace.
Where have the ad’s for the inter pro’s been on TV and radio? Why not get the managers and players to build it up for weeks- and not just have two games but make a league out of it-see how Munster bounce back from a defest to Ulster to play Leinster?
I doubt very much that the inter pro’s will make much of a sports impact in the papers on Monday but for the future of the competition more needs to be done to make sure the old railway competiton doesn’t fade into the background.
