Replying To Paull:  "A superior alternative is one where both Munster and Leinster are treated someway equally. Not one where Leinster has to take up the mantle of saving hurling outside of Munster and Leinster. Munster need to do their bit.
Allow Galway in say for 3 years and change to 4 qualifying out of 6 . Imagine 5 extra big Munster Championship games...
Then on the flip side have a 6 team Leinster championship with only the two teams that reach the Leinster Final qualifying. Bottom 2 play off to go down to the Joe McDonagh with the 5th team at home to the 6th team in that relegation final.
Surely thats better for yo yo teams like Carlow, Kildare, Antrim ,Westmeath and Laois. While it would also give Offaly , Dublin and Wexford time get to Kilkennys level. And in all fairness at underage those 3 teams seems to be very close to the level of all the top teams."

Replying To skillet:  "I think the absence of John Conlon doesn't get mentioned enough...he's a huge loss to Clare at 6.

I was at Tipp v Clare in Ennis last year when Tipp ran riot in the first half .. the defence were so porous it was shocking. Same on Sunday.
The big difference between last year and this weekend was Conlon, he came on as a sub against Tipp and settled things immediately ."

Replying To Tadhg2020:  "Apart from getting rid of the league the rest happens already. We have the provincials. The winners are seeded 1 and go straight to semi final. The runners up are seeded 2 and play the 3rd placed team from the other provincial championship who are seeded 3. Some teams have to be knocked out after the provincial championships. Otherwise whats the point."

Replying To Overdahill:  "Tadhg beat me to it but it's funny to hear people call for an 'Open draw seeded based on the provincials' which is what we have now in other words. What they're calling for in reality is the current system except no one gets knocked out, or else a provincial knockout leading into an All ireland knockout & Qualifiers which is what we had for years

Anyone wanting to get rid of the Provincial round robins is out of their minds imo. None of the argumens stand up to any scrutiny. We're seeing more of the top players in big games than we ever did before, so the (mainly RTE driven tbf) narrative about what a shame it is that players are out of the championship 'early' is complete nonsense. even with waterford struggling we get 4 games of Stephen Bennett per year. You can be 100% sure if provincials were seperated out from the All Ireland you'd see less of Bennett as he'd be eased into the Munster championship to be 'right' for the All Ireland.

As for the teams currently in the Joe Mac, the current system is better for them than at any point in history. They get 5-6 games a year at a competitive level, a chance at Croke Park and a trophy, and if they earn it a chance to play 5 games in Leinster. since 2018 we've seen Westmeath get a win and draw against Wexford, Carlow Draw with KK, Antrim beat wexford. results like that were a once every 20 or 30 year shot for the rest of GAA history. The reality for those counties is they have peaks and troughs, and they way it is currently allwos them to have a shot at the big teams when they are on a high, and to play at an appropriate level when they are struggling. If a team was to have an Offaly 80s style revolution then they would have ample opportunity to show their worth and maintain a place in Leinster long term

People can live in a dream world all they want where we have an open draw and the Musnter championship still holds the same prestige, or where carlow, Antrim and Westmeath can all get to the level of Dublin or Galway if they are left in the Leinster championship indefinitely, but that's not practical. The current system has far more plusses than negatives and I certainly can't think of a superior alternative.

That being said the nature of the GAA has always been that people will complain for long enough and evetually the system will be changed again so just bide your time and it will happen"

Replying To bloodandbandage:  "Agree with this 100%."

Replying To Buachaillbui:  "The point was to get rid of the league. Anyways I'd rather talk about the match itself then bar stool debating. My main point was We (Clare ) are in trouble and need to find a spark quick."

Replying To Tadhg2020:  "You will just have to work harder so to reach our level collectively. When you provide the same level of competition, entertainment etc and draw in the same audience then you can talk about equality. The leinster championship waa struggling long before ye brought in Galway."

Replying To Viking66:  "We, the Leinster counties, will likely be able to close the gap on the pitch, as has often happened over the history of hurling. There have been many periods when Leinster counties and Galway have had better teams than some or most Munster counties. In the noughties Kilkenny were the best team. In the 90s 3 different Leinster counties won 5 of the 10 AIs, and sometimes got harder games in Leinster than they did in the AI series. In the 1980s Munster teams only won 3 of the 10 AIs that decade. If you aggregate the scores of the AI finals in the 70s Leinster the counties come out on top too. The 1960s were split 5 each also. Munster is certainly dominating the last 10 years, but that wont always be so.
But outside of perhaps Wexford and Galway its unlikely we will get the same attendances even if we are more successful than most of the Munster counties. And thats down to demographics. Offaly and Kilkenny put together have a fraction of the population of Cork or Limerick, and around the same or less than Clare, Waterford and Tipp."

Replying To bloodandbandage:  "Why do you think Clare are in trouble? Because of one heavy loss to Limerick?"

Replying To Buachaillbui:  "It's not because of one loss, the team as I see it, are not firing on all cylinders. It was the same last year with our limp all-ireland defence. The hunger , the fire and that spark wasn't there and still isn't. Lim/Clare ,as you know,is a derby, tearing strips out of each other, no room to breathe, every score fought for. Whether we beat Lim or not ,we made it fierce hard for them. Limerick just rolled over us and it's the ease at which they did so, worries me particularly when they were missing quite a few leaders. Especially the space they had even in the first half. The backline is as leaky as a hedgehogs lilo. We haven't fixed that problem at all. I don't see us troubling Cork down in the páirc so I feel we need to find that spark quick by Sunday or we're gone. I just feel we've lost an edge we used to have."