Emmet Moloney writes for the 'The Irish Farmers Journal' and is a former sports columnist with 'The Kerryman'.

Galway were forced to play three games in fifteen days while Kilkenny and Tipp have had a month off. It’s time for an open draw and a championship run on a league basis. Emmet Moloney writes...

This has not been a good year on the hurling side of things for the GAA. The mess in Cork was followed by a tepid league, saved somewhat by a thrilling final. We should get that final pairing again in September and, if we do, maybe Tipp and Kilkenny can save the championship as well. Because it needs saving. The qualifier system does not need saving. Yet the Déise’s stirring comeback on Sunday in Thurles may have saved it anyway.

And don’t be fooled by the GAA’s statistics – crowds are down. The Munster hurling final wasn’t even sold out and Tipp were playing in Semple Stadium. Alarm bells should be ringing everywhere. A Special Congress is mooted for the winter. Be brave, lads.

The ridiculous make-up of the championship has seen Limerick reach an All-Ireland semi-final without beating a recognised hurling power. Victories against Wexford, Laois and Dublin have gotten them into the last four. This is not Limerick’s fault, simply the nature of a system. But it is plainly flawed.

And then we had the farcical relegation play-offs. Players voting on whether to take part in the games and reports that a county chairman had to plead with one panel to play on Saturday. Crazy carry-on in July and yet another sign that the powers that be are not helping hurling in the long term.

Galway lost to a determined Waterford on Sunday in the best of the qualifier matches to date. A spirited encounter won at the death by a dogged John Mullane. It was Galway’s third game in fifteen days. They had played Clare, Cork and then the Déise. Compare that to Limerick’s path.

Meanwhile, Kilkenny and Tipperary have a month off to watch these teams flog themselves to exhaustion. Waterford have two weeks now to prepare for Kilkenny, while Justin McCarthy has three weeks to plan for Limerick’s date with Tipperary.

The open draw and/or championship run on a league basis is the only way to go. Even calling the current morass “the qualifiers” suggests it isn’t up to scratch. Call it something else. Make it something else.

The All-Ireland semi-finals are there to give us the best four teams in the country. We certainly have the best three and Limerick followers reading this will rear up at the suggestion that they don’t belong. They do. They have won their way there legitimately, but that won’t help them against Tipp. And let’s be honest, they are not in the top four. There is the potential for Kilkenny and Tipperary to walk through their semi-finals.

Some hurling men will fear for Justin McCarthy’s side against those Tipp forwards. With the Déise, you would expect the wounds from last September are still fresh. If so, then maybe they can put 70 minutes together against the champions.

But, if we’re honest, the Waterford-Limerick double is not going to happen. One shock unlikely, two shocks impossible.

Dublin and Galway bowed out on Sunday but both made progress this year. The Tribesmen ran out of steam and into a resurgent Waterford while the Dubs don’t like the mantle of favourites. They didn’t hurl with the same fluency they had shown on previous Sundays, but their day will come.

The joke that the relegation play-offs have turned into does not reflect well on those guardians of hurling in HQ. It is obvious that everyone will stay up and Carlow will join them. Clare, Offaly and Wexford did the cheerleading on Antrim’s behalf. It worked.

But what about Laois? Here was a team earmarked for the trapdoor and, because they didn’t read the script, the other four panicked. Fair play to Niall Rigney and fair play to Laois. By beating Antrim they caused the northerners to reach for their get-out-of-relegation-free card. Antrim didn’t expect to lose that match and not many people paid attention to it – particularly those Antrim players that booked holidays in Portugal for that week. If you treat teams with little respect, it will come back to bite you.

For all the praise heaped on Anthony Daly and John McIntyre for resuscitating their counties, very little has been said or written about Niall Rigney and Laois. Limerick, now in the last four, were lucky to beat Laois two weeks ago and perhaps with a little more composure the midlanders could have held on for a good win.

They were expected to go down and without a fight, hence the sheer amazement of Antrim, Clare, Wexford and Offaly when it was suggested to them that one of them might exit the Liam McCarthy Cup. All four of those counties would want to cop themselves on. While it would do little for hurling to have one of them (Antrim) relegated, the likes of Clare and Wexford needed the wake-up call of threatened relegation.

These two have not built on the success of the ’90s. Those dizzy heights seem so long ago. Wexford seem to have a big problem fielding even close to their best team, be it due to injury or disinterest, while Clare’s troubles have not been helped by a manager who appears to implode when a microphone is put under his nose. My native county didn’t win a league or championship game before last Saturday. They deserved to be in the relegation mix.

There isn’t a hell of a lot wrong with Clare and Wexford that a kind draw and a bit of fire in the bellies wouldn’t fix. Both are teams that traditionally improve once they get near Croke Park and both are demons for momentum. But their supporters have little faith in the current set-ups and who could blame them!

Wexford and Clare would be licking their lips at the chance of meeting Tipperary in a semi-final in three weeks’ time. Instead they were used as curtain-raiser fodder for Wicklow and Kildare supporters in Portlaoise. And they’ll think they’re as good as Limerick (who are licking their lips). Welcome to unreality.

Umpires Wanted!
If there’s any umpires out there who are alive to the speed of a moving sliotar, please apply to Croke Park. Quick. We don’t want to see a match decided on a bad call by an umpire but it still continues to happen.

In Thurles on Sunday there were four separate occasions when umpires looked at each other in confusion. “Did you see it?” they seemed to be asking each other. The referee wasn’t too sure either. Eoin Kelly was certainly robbed of a score. Technology would sort this out and why wait until a team are done? Referees bringing their own umpiring team to big games seems a little outdated as well.

Let Croke Park pick umpires and let’s make them active referees who can help with scores and any other skullduggery..

To catch Emmet's latest column, get 'The Irish Farmers' Journal' every Thursday...