The spectacular dual success of of both clubs suggests that offering both sports is not a hindrance to any club’s potential chances of success
Slaughtneil players celebrate after the victory over Portaferry in the Ulster club SHC at BOX-IT Athletic Grounds, Armagh. Photograph: Inpho
Cork and Galway are consistently the two strongest dual counties in the country, but they’re in the ha’penny place this weekend. Their hurling champions, Sarsfields and Loughrea, are hurling-only . That’s four of the 14 hurling and football teams who reached provincial club finals this year who had also previously reached at least the same stage in the other code too. This suggests that offering both sports is not a hindrance to any club’s chances of success, but that’s nevertheless not a particularly widespread view.
When Loughmore-Castleiney won the double in Tipperary in 2021, they ended up playing for 19 weekends in a row, all the way to the Munster hurling semi-final, alternating week-on-week for almost all that time. I remain convinced that every child in Ireland should get a chance to at least pick up a hurley and see if they enjoy the game. But when I was mouthing off to a friend of mine about this recently, he said something which rather stopped me in my tracks.
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