Donal Óg Cusack has once again reinstated his belief that the GAA has "failed hurling" after both Joe McDonagh Cup finalists Carlow and Offaly were knocked out of the All-Ireland senior hurling championship at the preliminary quarter-final stage yesterday.
The former Cork goalkeeper has also called on the association to pump huge financial investment into hurling in counties such as Carlow who have "shown promise".
Carlow defeated Offaly in the final of hurling's second tier competition a fortnight ago with both sides getting the opportunity to face the third placed teams in the provincial round-robin stages, Dublin and Tipperary, as a result in their home venues.
Carlow led Dublin by a point at half-time but ultimately fell to a ten point defeat, while Tipperary set an All-Ireland hurling championship scoring record hitting 7-38 to beat Offaly by over thirty points.
According to Cusack it has left the GAA with work to do.
"I would say the GAA has failed hurling"
Dónal Óg Cusack discusses the inability to spread hurling to counties beyond the elite #SaturdayGame #RTEGAA pic.twitter.com/6d9ExHLZII— The Sunday Game (@TheSundayGame) June 17, 2023
Donal Óg Cusack calls for financial investment in hurling
"I think today brought one of the biggest challenges that we've got back into focus," he said on The Saturday Game.
"First of all, Carlow should've been left to enjoy their Joe McDonagh win. Let them enjoy it. Let them prepare for next year. There's no point in bringing them into championship like that, not to mention Offaly.
"It's a reminder of whilst the game is going so well at one level, at another level it's actual struggling.
"Our biggest problem is that we can't spread the game outside of those big counties.
"I would say the GAA has failed hurling.
"We need to remember that the GAA took stewardship of the game. The GAA doesn't own hurling," he added.
"Before World War Two eleven different counties had won an All-Ireland. Since then there's only been nine. Offaly were the last new team to win it in 1981. Since then we've had no new teams in the All-Ireland final. There's nobody that can tell me anything other than that's failure.
"And there's mention of Carlow. I think this is really important.
"I think we need to go after serious investment with the teams that have shown promise like them.
"They've only got six clubs in Carlow. How are we expecting that the likes of Carlow are going to make that step up?
"I would say that the GAA needs to put teams like Carlow on steroids.
"Get more clubs there, more competing and that then will feed onto the inter-county game. But this isn't going to be done in five years, it'll probably take ten years and on that ten year point, where's the plan? I can't find a ten-year plan.
"If we don't have a ten year strategy, how are we going to get there?"
While Donal Óg Cusack has made the point a lot throughout the season, we can expect that it is not the last we've heard of this.
Dublin now march onto face Clare, while Tipperary will face a stiff test against Galway next Saturday in the All-Ireland senior hurling championship quarter-finals.
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