2011 has finally arrived, and with it, a new cornerstone for Limerick GAA.

Arguably for the first time ever, the Limerick GAA political machine has been blown apart and a motion proposing the setting up of a hurling board has been voted in against all the odds, beating the requirement of a 2/3rds majority by five votes.

The ‘top table’ were united against the motion put forward by Murroe/Boher, and rubber stamped their opposition to it, in the form of an email circulated to the clubs prior to Christmas. It was a strange move because, traditionally, the County Board wouldn’t publicly nail their colours to the mast at such an early stage if at all, preferring to gauge which way the wind was blowing. In some ways, the vote is as much a statement of dissatisfaction against the County Board as it is, apart from almost total backing for the new board. It is no harm for democracy to be restored in the form of individualised open voting and hopefully things will continue like that.

Unity is the most important factor at this stage. The important thing is that everyone unites, and basically works their socks off to put the underage structures in place and drive Limerick hurling on towards an All Ireland title. And that’s not necessarily all about spending hours in meeting rooms. It was once said, that an hour in a meeting room is an hour wasted, when it could be spent coaching underage players on the field.

In Kilkenny a lot of things are done right, but the most important thing of all is that there is extraordinary passion at all levels within the game and especially within homes. And that’s not passion in meeting rooms, its passion in terms of rolling up the sleeves. It’s considered an honour to take a child to training or take them out hurling in the garden in Kilkenny.

Hurling is not an easy game to teach; certainly it is more difficult than Gaelic Football, Soccer or Rugby. In fact, this writer would create an argument that many of the fundamentals in hurling are self-taught to a certain extent with proper guidance. Therein lies the passion among the Kilkenny kids themselves who walk around with hurleys and sliotars wherever they go. Hurling is fully embraced within schools in Kilkenny where a highly competitive primary schools system exists. Teachers look up the road and down the road and there’s a competitive streak in them, not wanting to be outdone by their neighbours. Call it a Celtic Tiger impact on hurling if you like - keeping up with the Jones’s. It’s a luxurious position to be in, and a position all other hurling counties should be aiming for.

But that all comes from the mindset, and comes from the good will associated with success. Since 1973 when we won our last All Ireland title, the longest spell Kilkenny have gone without a Leinster title is four years. They did go nine years without an All Ireland title from 1983 to 1992 but they won Leinster championships in 1986, 1987 and 1991 along with national league titles in 1986 and 1990.

In fact at senior level since 1973, Kilkenny have only had eleven barren years where they didn’t win a League, a Leinster championship or an All Ireland title. The unsuccessful years are 1977, 1980, 1981, 1984, 1985, 1988, 1989, 1994, 1996, 1997, 2004. In most of those years, they won at least a Leinster title at minor, under 21 or intermediate/junior level. We have to aspire to that, and see what we can do to get to that level.

The point was raised from the top table at the convention, that Kilkenny don’t have a hurling board, but the reality is that they do, because even though they pay a certain amount of respect to football, their focus is primarily on hurling at all levels from the bottom up. They don’t have the same threat from soccer and rugby that we have in Limerick either. There are eight competing teams in the Munster Senior Cup in rugby. Five of the eight teams are Limerick based - Ard Scoil Ris, St Munchin’s, Crescent Comprehensive, Castletroy College, and Glenstal. Only CBC, PBC and Rockwell are not Limerick based. In essence, Limerick schools provide over 60% of the player pool to the Munster Senior Cup. There are fourteen teams in the group stages of the 2010/2011 Harty Cup. Our sum contribution to the Harty Cup is i> Limerick school, Ard Scoil Ris, providing only 7% of the starting player pool to the competition, and not all those players are from Limerick. Limerick CBS, once a hurling nursery, is now predominantly a soccer school, and the domestic soccer scene within the city environs is stronger than any oval ball.

It must be noted that, despite contributing the bulk of players to the Munster Senior Cup, that has not transpired into success in terms of providing players for the Munster professional team. Realistically, by virtue of body shape and mobility, the majority of - but not all - rugby players best suited to playing hurling at the highest level would be playing in the backline, full backs, out halves, centres and wings. The first choice Munster rugby back line for the most recent Heineken Cup games consisted of Paul Warwick an Australian, Doug Howlett and Sam Tuitupou, both New Zealanders, John Murphy a Kildare man, and two Corkmen, Tomás O’Leary and Peter Stringer. It could be said that the sole Limerick man Keith Earls was on the Irish Senior team without spending any meaningful time in the Munster academy. In fact, the majority of the successful Castletroy College Munster Senior Cup winning team from 2008 have drifted from the game. Is the Munster academy producing Limerick-based backs in the same way that the Ulster and Leinster academies are?

In essence, there are limited vacancies for players in the Munster rugby academy. The Limerick based AIL senior teams cannot accommodate everyone either, and elite players with notions about themselves who are not good enough for the professional game seem to enter retirement. Whatever the perceived negatives associated with Harty Cup, it does not leave players with the mentality that they are above club hurling. But schools rugby takes players with no long term future in the game of rugby away from hurling during their formative years, and by the time they become uninterested in rugby, it’s too late to give any meaningful shot at hurling at the highest level.

If we were consistently successful as Kilkenny are, we could find ourselves in a situation whereby young impressionable teenagers (a) have already come out of second class with the basic skills of hurling mastered, and (b) are less willing to turn their backs on a career at the highest level in hurling to focus solely on a code that might not reap long term rewards. It must be said that this writer has nothing against rugby or soccer for that matter, and has played a number of times with TSDL Premier League side Galbally United over the winter months, has attended several English Premiership games in soccer, and regularly attends Heineken Cup games.

There is a bigger problem than soccer and rugby, and that’s (a) modern society and (b) the playstation. That needs to be acknowledged too. Time spent in front of the playstation was previously spent with a ball. They have playstations in Kilkenny too, but a combination of the passion and the mindset means that the kids want to be hurling ball rather than being stuck in front of the TV. Therein lies the challenge, creating a situation where our kids don’t want to be on a playstation, but want to be pucking around.

Eamonn Cregan has often spoken of everyone sitting on their haunches after 1973 and not driving on and capitalising on the success. A generation lost to the game then has meant that their children have lost out now. We are fighting a rearguard action. The time has come to link arms and march together. People need to put their differences to one side for the good of Limerick hurling. Nobody is asking any enemies to become best buddies but the time has come to reach a stage w