Replying To Viking66:  "No Pikeman 72 teams here are Junior or worse. Intermediate A is Junior really. Basically we only have 6 more teams playing Senior or Intermediate than Offaly. Around the same as Antrim too. Laois also would have nearly the same. We don't have the huge pick advantage over the middle tier counties for our Senior hurlers the OPs stats would imply."

Replying To Pikeman96:  "Well, you're into semantics there, and yes it's true that the third grade - now called Intermediate 'A' in Wexford - was traditionally called Junior. So, equally true to say that only 24 out of 96 teams play in either of the top two grades.

But I'm not sure that a simple count of the number of senior and intermediate teams in a county is much of a measure of anything as regards talent or quality. We could decide to drop to just eight teams in senior and intermediate next year, if we wanted to. It doesn't mean that every player in the eight teams going down would suddenly become worse because they'd then be playing at a lower grade.

Or, we could decide feck it, let's put 48 or 60 teams into senior, and play one massive championship. It wouldn't magically bring up the standard of all the players and teams currently lining out in the third, fourth and fifth grades.

Also, Kilkenny are the same as us, in that they have 12 teams in senior and 12 in intermediate. But they had 108 teams altogether, which means 84 playing "junior or worse". Doesn't seem to do them much harm.

For what it's worth, I'd be a traditionalist myself as regards what grades should be called, and if it was up to me, I'd be sticking with Senior, Intermediate, Junior, Junior 'A', Junior 'B', etc. I particularly dislike how some counties call their second grade Senor 'B' instead of Intermediate, and am glad we never introduced that in Wexford.

But having said all that, go tell an Intermediate 'A' club here that they're really a Junior club, and see the reaction you get.....!"