Earlier this month, a few days after his club were knocked out of the Ulster championship, Luca McCusker opened a newspaper and read in disbelief. The GAA's Central Competitions Control Committee had recommended that counties with fewer than five adult hurling teams should be excluded from the National League from 2025.
If the recommendation is adopted at next month's Central Council meeting, it will mean that Cavan, Leitrim, Longford, Louth and McCusker's Fermanagh will only play in the Lory Meagher Cup.
"I couldn't believe what I was reading, that half our inter-county year would be taken away from us in 2025. There was no consultation, no warning," McCusker tells Balls.
2 April 2022; Adam Quinn of Longford in action against Luca McCusker of Fermanagh during the Allianz Hurling League Division 3B Final match between Fermanagh and Longford at Avant Money Páirc Seán Mac Diarmada in Carrick-on-Shannon, Leitrim. Photo by Michael P Ryan/Sportsfile
At a county committee meeting on Monday night, it was unanimously agreed that Fermanagh GAA will vote against the proposal next month. McCusker is glad to have that reassurance, something he "half expected".
As part of the plan, money saved from teams not competing in the National League would be used to provide coaches to clubs and schools with the long-term aim being to increase the number of adult hurlers in those lower tier counties. McCusker says it's "so many steps backwards to try and get one forward".
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"One of my friends, another boy on the panel, Caolan Duffy, said that this could really affect our county careers," says McCusker.
"Half our inter-county matches are gone each year. If that gets any worse, the motivation to go out will disappear which means we might not have a team in 10 years. I sat back, thought about it, [and realised] that's a distinct possibility if something like this was to go through. It could dismantle hurling in the weaker counties.
"One of the GAA slogans I read there is 'GAA - Where We All Belong'... We shouldn't be treated any different just because of where we're from."@FermanaghGAA's Luca McCusker calls for players from the top tier hurling counties to speak against a GAA proposal to remove his… pic.twitter.com/J3vm9nd2P0
— Balls.ie (@ballsdotie) November 22, 2023
"I was talking to a couple of my housemates, three other county hurlers, all Fermanagh boys. I was thinking, would you bother playing for a Fermanagh team that can't gain promotion or would you go to a different county, the likes of Antrim where you could get 10, 20 unbelievable high standard club games? You could go down the country to Dublin.
"That's something I don't want to do or even think about. I'd rather be playing in Fermanagh with the boys I live with, with my best friends. Taking that away from us would be quite hard.
"We have three clubs at the moment, two juniors and then ourselves, Lisbellaw. They're expecting us to double the hurling population in Fermanagh when it's already getting stretched beyond what's normal for us."
31 July 2021; Fermanagh players, Tom Keenan, 15, Aidan Flanagan, 4, Caolan Duffy, 13, Ronan McGurn, 25, Ciaran Duffy, 20, Dylan Bannon, 21, and Luca McCusker celebrate after the Lory Meagher Cup Final match between Fermanagh and Cavan at Croke Park in Dublin. Photo by Ray McManus/Sportsfile
McCusker believes that the GAA has not done enough to support the counties which populate hurling's lower tiers. In an ideal situation, he would have someone like Martin Fogarty - Brian Cody's former right-hand man who was national hurling development manager for five years - on the ground in every county.
"The amount of work that man does for hurling, especially in my county and the counties around it, is unbelievable. Coming up with that Táin Óg League... some of the teams that have come through it have been class," says McCusker.
"Imagine if you had the likes of Martin Fogarty in each county, five or ten years down the line, you would never have to worry about pulling a team out of the leagues. It would be ideal if you could get ten more Martin Fogartys!"
For the Fermanagh hurlers, unlike the Liam MacCarthy Cup teams, the National League is "unbelievably important".
This year, they were relegated from Division 3A and also the Nickey Rackard Cup. The majority of their games were decided by just a handful of scores.
Fermanagh finished bottom of their league group with a points difference of -2 and in the Rackard basement with -11. Winning Division 3B, and the Lory Meagher Cup as they did in 2015 and 2021, are their two big aims for 2024.
"It's not like in the higher tiers where they just play it out so they can get to championship," says McCusker.
"[The League] is actually quite meaningful for us. The standard goes up quite a bit through the levels.
"For us, the prize isn't a trophy or winning a final, the prize for the likes of us weaker counties is playing against the higher standard where we can then get better."
21 October 2023; The Ireland squad and backroom team before the 2023 Hurling Shinty International Game between Ireland and Scotland at Páirc Esler in Newry, Down. Photo by Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile
In October, McCusker was part of the Ireland team which defeated Scotland in a hurling/shinty international. Getting a call-up from Damien Coleman and his management team was a surprise. Just weeks earlier, he and a friend had discussed getting the train to Newry and attending the game.
One of Ireland's selectors was Sambo McNaughton. Last week, on the Our Game podcast, McNaughton called for hurlers from Cork, Kilkenny, Limerick and other Liam MacCarthy Cup teams to speak up for their counterparts in Fermanagh, Cavan, Leitrim, Longford and Louth.
"I'd love to get the backing of the boys to show that they care," says McCusker.
"We are all hurling men. Sambo is no different. He's the ultimate hurling man. When you're talking to him about hurling, the hair is standing up on the back of your neck.
"Those county boys that we were watching when we were younger, going out in the back garden and pretending to be like, if they were able to back us, and even other county boards at the higher levels, it would show we are all together.
"One of the GAA slogans I read there is 'GAA - Where We All Belong'. We all belong together. We're all hurlers, we're all footballers, all camogs, and we shouldn't be treated any different just because of where we're from.
"It's scary to think if something like this does go through, where does it end? Are they just going to continue to get rid of the lower tiers until you have the top tier and use that as a money cow?
"What's [also] worrying me is our camogie and ladies football counterparts, how the hell are they going to get treated if we are getting threatened with having our league taken from us? You wonder where that is going to lead."
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