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

The beauty of professional sports is that they tend to give the punters what they want. They do this because this is where the money is, writes Emmet Moloney...

Money, logically enough, is what makes professional sports tick. It pays for the players and everyone else down the line. It’s a simple enough system and it gets tinkered with every now and again to ensure we, the paying public, don’t miss out.

Rugby is a wonderful example of how to do so many things right. The professional game is only about 15 years old but already the fixtures are being created, hyped and held to gain maximum effect. This means full houses and huge television audiences.

This weekend, Munster play Leinster and even though it is only the Magners League and even though this game will matter little in the grand scheme of things, as both teams will comfortably qualify for the closing stages, this game matters. It will fill Thomond Park and it will fill pubs and living rooms around the country. Twenty years ago, you could have driven the car into the ground when these two sides played. If you were going to be late, you could nearly have called ahead and they might have put the game back for you. They rarely got 500 to these games. So, what has changed?

In a word: marketing.

Now, contrast Munster playing Leinster with Kilkenny playing Tipperary. As things stand, Kilkenny and Tipp are guaranteed one meeting a year in the National Hurling League. This year that match drew around 7,000 spectators on a cold night in Semple Stadium in the early days of February. If these two manage to avoid the pitfalls of the Munster and Leinster championships, they just might meet again in the All-Ireland hurling final, as they have done for the past two years. If we’re third-time lucky, there will be 82,000 on hand to witness the third instalment of a thrilling series. A small bonus sees them reach a league final where perhaps 25,000 are there to see the skin and hair flying.

It’s always a classic when these two clash. But guess what: they can go years without meeting each other when the stakes are highest. They have been known to go 10 or 12 years without their supporters getting the chance to ball-hop each other in the confines of Croke Park. Before their latest escapades, over the past 40 years they had met only in 2002, 1991 and 1971 in Croke Park.

Now take Kerry and Dublin. A guaranteed bumper crowd in Croker for the championship. The two teams that lit up the golden ’70s with a rivalry that will live forever in Micheál O’Hehir’s voice and Paddy Cullen’s startled look. They can go decades without seeing each other when it really matters. Cork-Tipp? Clare-Limerick? Armagh-Tyrone? Galway-Mayo? You know the rest; the list is endless.

Yet Munster and Leinster know that every year, once early in the season to get it going and once around Easter to kick-start the season’s climax, they will meet. Their players know it, their supporters know it and even the publicans around Limerick know enough about it to break the holy day that was Good Friday.

In the GAA, we can be at the mercy of the hot balls and the cold balls. Not so the rugby fraternity. Following this Saturday’s game, there is every chance that these two could meet again in the Magners League final or semi-final. No matter, the two full houses are already booked in, a third contest would be a bonus.

Looking at last weekend’s National Hurling League match-ups would whet the appetite for this type of hurling on a summer’s day. Cork-Tipp, Cats-Déise, Dublin-Galway, Offaly-Wexford. Between the four games we had an average of a puck of a ball between them. We need those Sundays in July and August. Those eight teams are legitimate top-table counties. Why can’t they all be playing each other every second Sunday in the blood and thunder of championship hurling?

Answers on a postcard to Croke Park and the latest committee that will be formed to try fix hurling. Last Sunday’s March menu could fix it in a heartbeat if you just change March to July.

The rugby heads deserve all the credit for what they have done. Who cares if Munster and Leinster are a very recent phenomenon. They’re here, they entertain us and they’ve made us care again about rugby more times than the usual four games a year we used to see on television. The lesson is hardly hidden. Build it around the product and people will come. Make it mean something and people will come. Put some imagination into it and people will come. That’s how to do it.

The game of soccer is a perfect example of how not to do it. I’ll shout for anyone wearing the green jersey in any code, but international football is fast losing all relevance. Is there anything more devalued now than an international soccer friendly? Did you watch Ireland play Uruguay on Tuesday night? Who? Yeah, me neither.

So the international game of soccer moves backwards while the game of rugby rebuilds and fills Thomond Park, a ground steeped in history, but falling apart as recently as 15 years ago. Why? Because the rugby crowd are smart, that’s why!

There is no disconnect between players and province, players and supporters. Forget the professionalism, you are more likely to see Munster rugby players like Paul O’Connell and Ronan O’Gara visit kids in your local school than any hurler or footballer. With the helmets, you wouldn’t recognise the hurlers anyway. (Be honest, Tommy Walsh, possibly the most outstanding hurler of his generation – do you know what he looks like? Can you picture his face?)

The rugby crowd have shrewdly looked at their marketplace and decided to give supporters ownership of their provincial teams. There’s your blueprint right there. How have they done it? Who has done it? Can we poach them?

The GAA stands still, offering GAA solutions to GAA problems like the qualifiers, the use of technology, discipline and television saturation. We’re being passed out. Our greatest strength is often our greatest weakness and within the GAA our greatest asset is the sheer size and democratic nature of the organisation. But that strength also serves to slow down the pace at which change can come.

The solution? We have plenty of good and progressive people in Croke Park. Let’s trust them to get on with the job, not send them back to clubs, conventions, county boards, congresses and councils, waiting for the okay to change the colour of the referee’s jersey. Let’s try some changes. If they don’t work, fair enough. But let’s try.

Fifteen years ago Limerick and Clare filled the Gaelic Grounds on the Ennis Road for a classic Munster semi-final that drew 44,000 people. It would be 12 years before they met again in the Munster championship. Twelve years! I remember that 1996 day because of Ciaran Carey’s point (naturally, as it broke my heart!) and the fact that I parked outside a dilapidated looking Thomond Park.

How times change. On Saturday I’ll probably park near the Gaelic Grounds, a stadium that Limerick haven’t filled in years, and walk up to Thomond Park, a state-of-the-art facility that will be overflowing and not for the last time this season.

Is anyone listening?